LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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c/iooHOi^ri. 



THE 



LIFE AND TIMES 



Gen'l John A. Sutter 



T. J. SCHOONOVER. 



ILLUSTRATED POCKET EDITION. 



JULlS11893f 



SACRAMENTO : 

D. Johnston & Co., Printers. 

1S95. 



(ip wi^9.^ 



/^S^'V ^^^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, 

in the office of the I,ibrarian, 

At Washington, D. C,, in the year 1895, 

By T. J. Schoonover. 



PREFACE. 

This unassuming volume is not a garland of 
rhetorical flowers, nor is it an offering from 
Fancy's rich domain. It is a faithful, yet modest 
presentation of facts pertaining to him whose 
memory the author desires to perpetuate. 

As a narrative, it may be void of system, bar- 
ren in elegance and wanting in attraction. The 
object in offering it to the public is to supply a 
long-felt want. The author entertains a hope 
that his motive may incline the charitable reader 
to deal kindly with him and palliate his errors. 

For assistance, in collecting material for this 
work, Judge J. H. McKune, C. K. McClatchy, 
Esq., and Hon. W. J. Davis are remembered 
with gratitude. 

T. J. SCHOONOVER. 



TO THE SOCIETY OF THE 

NATIVE SONS OF THE GOI.DEN WEST 

THIS WORK IS 

RESPECTFUI.I.Y DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 

Gen. John Augustus Sutter i 

I^etter from Sutter to Alvarado lo 

Sutter's Fort 12 

Desperate Fight with Indians 16 

White Horse and Picket 17 

The Web Foot 19 

Major Ringgold 20 

Bodega and Fort Ross 22 

Captain John C. Fremont 27 

The Flour Mill 28 

Sutter's Distillery 29 

The Tannery 31 

Execution of Raphero 31 

The Mill where Gold Was Found 37 

The Discovery Made Known 44 

Sutter's Fort an Objective Point . 45 

The Fort in Ruins 48 

The Fort Reclaimed 51 

James Wilson Marshall 53 

Farming 60 

Flogging of Adam 63 

The Mormons and the Flag 66 

Vehicles 68 

Castro Rebellion 7° 

Black E:agle 78 

Society 83 

The Bear Flag Revoluion 87 

Murder of Cowey and Fowler 103 

The Carnival of Gold 105 

Freighting , 113 

Bull Fights 119 

Gen. Sutter's I^osses 121 

Private Apartments 132 

Sutter Relief Fund 134 



THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 



GENERAL JOHN AUGUSTUS SUTTER. 

Was born of Swiss parentage in Kandern, in 
the Grand Dutchy of Baden, on the 28th day of 
February, in the year 1803. As he was born at 
midnight, the last day of February and the first 
day of March divide the honor of issuing into 
active life him whose name is an honor to his 
native land; and which, with that of Tell, will 
live on down through centuries to come. 

After having received a common school edu- 
cation, he was placed in a military college at 
Berne, where he was graduated in the year 1823. 
After having taken his degree, he entered the 
French service as an officer of the Swiss Guard, 
and was in the Spanish campaign of 1823-4, 
where he distinguished himself for his bravery; 
for his generous, frank and confiding nature, and 
for the faithful and conscientious discharge of his 
duties as a soldier and his responsibility as an offi- 
cer. He continued in the French service 'till 1834. 



2 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 

His parents were classed with families of re- 
spectability and local distinction; possessing 
ample means to introduce them into circles of 
social and intellectual refinement. Being pos- 
sessed of an enterprising spirit and a keen relish 
for romance and pioneer adventures, Captain 
Sutter, as he was then called, early in his life 
conceived the idea of founding a Swiss colony 
somewhere in North America. To this end he 
made available such means as he possessed, bade 
adieu to friends and fatherland and sailed for 
New York, where he arrived about the middle of 
July, in the year 1834. Thence he pushed on to 
what at that time was called the "far west," his 
objective point being Saint Charles, Missouri, 
where he arrived in due time. He proceeded 
to explore the vast region lying west of the 
Mississippi, where he intended to acquire pos- 
session of a large tract of land and pave the way 
for a settlement of his own countrymen. This 
scheme he was soon forced to abandon. The 
vessel containing his means was wrecked in the 
Mississippi river, by which occurrence he sus- 
tained a total loss of all his possessions. Severe 
as the loss was, his spirits remained good and 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 3 

his ardor unabated. He then made an exploring 
trip to Santa Fe, where he ventured in some 
speculations with trappers — whites and Indians — 
with whom he carried on an extensive and 
profitable fur trade. At this place he received a 
description of California. He left Missouri on 
the nth day of April, 1838, and traveled with 
the American Fur Company, under command of 
Captain Tripp, to their rendezvous on the Wind 
river, in the Rocky mountains. Thence, in 
company with six men, he set out on horseback 
across the mountains and over the long- stretch 
of unbroken solitude lying between him and the 
fur-trading posts on the northwestern frontier of 
the Oregon territory. In due time he reached 
the Dalles, on the Columbia river, from which 
place he went to Fort Vancouver, whence he 
soon took passage on a trading vessel bound for 
the Sandwich Islands, where he remained five 
months. At this place he shipped as supercargo 
on an English vessel bound for Sitka. After 
remaining in Sitka one month, he sailed down the 
coast, encountering heavy gales, and entered 
San Francisco bay in distress on the 2d day of 
July, 1839. Being ordered by the provincial 



THE I<IFE AND TIMES OF 




C en. John A. Sutter. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 5 

officer to leave that port, as it was not a port of 
entr}', without delay, he sailed for Monterey and 
obtained from Governor Alvarado a passport, 
with full permission to travel through California 
with his men, and a promise of a grant of any 
unappropriated land he might desire to occupy. 
He returned to San Francisco and began to 
explore the Sacramento river. San Francisco, 
at this time, contained about 40 inhabitants, not 
one ot whom possessed any knowledge whatever 
of the Sacramento river. One man had under- 
stood that a large river emptied into the bay 
from the northeast. Opposed by tide and wind 
and fog he was eight days in finding the mouth 
of the river. 

On the river bank, ten miles below where the 
city of Sacramento now stands, 500 painted war- 
riors assembled to dispute his passage up the 
stream. A chief and one or two others being 
able to speak quite good Spanish, Sutter informed 
them that his mission was peaceful; that they 
were not Spaniards, and that they (his party) and 
the Indians would endeavor to maintain friendly 
relations. He gave them some beads, which was 
like pouring oil on angry waters. Two of the 



6 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

Indians who spoke Spanish, engaged to pilot 
him up the river, which he explored as far as the 
mouth of the Feather river. Here he dropped 
anchor, and proceeded some distance up the 
Feather in a small boat. On returning, he found 
the crew in incipient mutiny, protesting against 
penetrating further into a country where the indi- 
cations promised great hardships and peril, if not 
their utter extermination. Whether Sutter had 
a desire to explore still further up the stream, we 
are unable to learn. But he weighed anchor on 
the following morning and dropped down to the 
mouth of the American river, on the left bank of 
which he discharged his goods on the 12th day 
of August, 1839. 

Remote from the hum of enterprises and from 
the bustle and din of civilization, on the tide 
waters of the Sacramento, with fifteen men, eight 
of whom were Kanakas, given him by the King 
of the Sandwich Islands, he pitched his tent, plant- 
ed his cannon, established sentinels and laid the 
foundation for a settlement which, for the benefi- 
cial and lasting consequences it has entailed on 
our country, and on the world, is peerless in the 
republic of colonies. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 7 

Captain Sutter now found himself legally 
established in a country unsurpassed in natural 
resources, extending its boundaries over every 
variety of soil and climate, and everywhere 
canopied by the softest and sweetest tints of 
azure. 

The Indians at this time and place were 
numerous, hostile and treacherous, and to 
guard against these barbarous ills, a trusty senti- 
nel was ever kept on duty at night. Any devia- 
tion from this vigilance would have been fatal to 
the colony. In after years, when Sutter's 
strength was acknowledged and his dominion 
well established, an Indian chief told him that, 
had it not been for his "big gun" (cannon), his 
tribe, long before, would have scalped every 
man in the colony and plundered the settlement 
of all its treasure. 

A large bull-dog owned and kept by Sutter 
saved his master's life on two occasions. The 
instances being similar, I will relate but one: 

On a dark night, when balmy sleep was 
holding the pioneer in its soft embrace, a stalwart 
Indian, induced by some occult incentive, softly 
and stealthily entered, with tomahawk in hand, 



8 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

tlie tent where the hero hiy. Brave, the dog, 
had a couch near his master's feet. True to 
canine instinct, he "snuffed the game," and, 
seeing his master's perilous situation, displayed 
his fidelity by springing upon the murderous 
assailant with a courage that knew no bounds. 
His eyes blazed like diamonds as he drove his 
ivory clamps to the Indian's throttle. 

By virtue of a contract duly entered into 
between Sutter and the Russian government, the 
latter was bound to furnish him annually with 
good iron and steel and files, to be used in his 
shops, and beads for the Indians, and many 
other things, including one hundred pounds of 
coarse cannon powder and one hundred pounds 
of fine rifle powder. To these supplies he 
attached great importance and guarded them 
with miserly care. Especially did he look upon 
his ammunition as his "tluis sayeth the Lord." 

In October, 1839, he brought to his ranch 
about 500 head of cattle, 50 horses, and a 
monada of 25 mares, which he liad previously 
purchased of Sefior Martinez. In the autumn of 
1840, he purchased of Don Antonio Sunol 1,000 
head of cattle, and as man}' horses of Don 



GKN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 9 

Joaquin Gomez and others. In the same autumn 
he l)uilt an adobe house where the fort now 
stands, coverino^ it with tules (bull rushes), which 
turned sunshine better than it did rain. In the 
same year the Kanakas, assisted by the friendly 
Indians in Sutter's employ, built three grass 
houses, fashioned after those in the Sandwich 
Islands. 

In 1840 the Indians were very troublesome, 
killing cattle and stealing and driving off horses. 
By an occasional exhibition of his prowess in the 
field, Sutter sought to inculcate in them a higher 
conception of righ.t and wrong. A little whole- 
some and well-timed authority reduced the 
desperadoes to an improved system of behavior. 

The colony obtained its supplies from San 
Francisco. The trip to that place must be 
made by Indians and Kanakas, and in an open 
boat. Sometimes the wind blew adversely, and 
again a dead calm prevailed for many days. In 
the latter case, they turnea to the god of muscle 
and invoked a white- ash breeze. 

In his journal Sutter says: "It is a wonder we 
got not swamped a many time, all time with an 
Indian crew and a Kanaka at the helm." 



lO THE I^IFK AND TIMKS OF 

In 1 84 1 Sutter received from Governor 
Alvarado a grant of eleven square leagues of 
land, entitled New Helvetia, and an appointment 
to the military command of the Northern Dis- 
trict of California. He was also appointed 
alcalde of the same district. 

LETTER FROM SUTTER TO ALVARADO. 

The following is copied verbatim from a letter 
written by Captain Sutter to Governor Alvarado: 

"A su excellencia Senior Don Juan Bap- 
tistta Alvarado, Governador constitutionalde 
las das Californas, en Monterey. — Excellent 
Sir! Allow me to write you in English, 
because I like not to make mistakes in 
an expression. I have the honor to send you 
with this an act of a committed crime on this 
place; please give me your orders what I have to 
do with the Delinquent which is keept as a 
Prisoner here. Delinquent Henry Bee was put 
in Irons, but his friends bound themselves for 
1000 Dollars Security, when I would take the 
irons from him, in which their wishes I consented. 

"John Wilson, Black Jack, is well known, as at 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. It 

life he was a bad character, which may be some- 
thing in Bee's favour. Waiting for your Orders, 
I shall keep the Delinquent in Prison. 

"The Trapping party from the Columbia 
River will be here in about 8 Days under com- 
mand of Mr. Ermatinger. I am also watting for 
oneof my friends, a German Gentleman, with the 
same party. I believe he travels for his pleasure. 

"A strong body of American farmers are 
coming here, a young Man of the party got lost 
since lo Days, nearly starved to death and on 
foot; he don't know which Direction the party 
took. I believe the will come about the Direc- 
tion of the Pueblo. I was also informed that 
another company is coming stronger than this 
under Mr. Fanum [Farnum]. 

"Some very curious Rapports come to me, 
which made me first a little afraid but after two 
hours I get over the fit. 

"I remain, Excellent Sir! 

"Very Respectfully, 

"J. A. Sutter. 
"Neuva Helvetia, November 4 de 1841. 

"P. S. — in a short time I shall have a secretary 
who is able to write Spanish." 



12 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 



Sutter's Fort. 



In the summer of 1841, Sutter began to build 
liis fort. It was an adobe structure, the brick 
being made by Kanakas and Indians; the latter, 
having become friendly and serviceable to the 
colony, were kept constantly in Sutter's employ. 
Sutter, himself, worked very hard building the 
fort, not only in superintending the entire plant, 
but in directing all of the operations and, with 
his own hands, making and laying brick. This 
fort, so justly famed as a landmark of pioneer 
adventure, industry and enterprise, was built, 
ostensibly, for the purpose of protecting the 
colony from the incursions of wild, warlike and 
treacherous Indians; but to protect the settle- 
ment from the violence of the more cowardly, 
and not less treacherous Spaniards, was an 
incentive to all others paramount. Great as the 
undertaking must have been, in the absence of 
energetic and skilled laborers and appliances 
suited to the advancement of a great work, the 



G^N. JOHN A. SUTTER. 



13 




i4 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

outer wall was pushed to a completion in the 
autumn after its commencement. 

The fort was so grand and commodious that 
the entire settlement could, and did, sleep, cook 
and dine within its walls; and with a faithful sen- 
tinel on duty at the gate, a feeling of security- 
enhanced the pleasures of this far away home. 
The work-shops, tools, store-houses and sup- 
plies were also kept within the walls. 

Sutter, naturally enough, reposed greater con- 
fidence in the virtue of the massive battlements and 
the intrepid and iron-throated debaters on whose 
fidelity he could safely rely, and which were 
ready, on a moment's warning, to thunder 
through the embrasure, an avalanche of con- 
vincing argument, than he did in the good faith 
and sincerity of those upon whom he had been 
taught by experience to look with distrust, and 
whose real aim was a problem which defied solu- 
tion. 

In imagination, we can enjoy with the little 
t:olony the pleasure a feeling of safety was calcu- 
lated to inspire. It was a luxury that extracted 
the bitter from toil and the sting from human 
existence. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 1 5 

In 1846 Sutter was offered by California, 
through General Castro, $100,000 for his fort, 
which had been completed in 1844. 

The following is an extract from the narrative 
of Captain John C. Fremont, who visited the fort 
n 1844: 

"The fort is a quadrangular adobe structure, 
mounting 12 pieces of artillery (two of them 
brass), and capable of admitting a garrison of a 
thousand men; this, at present, consists of 40 
Indians, in uniform — one of whom is always 
found on duty at the gate. As might natur- 
ally be expected, the pieces are not in very good 
order. The whites in the employ of Capt. Sut- 
ter, American, French and German, amount, 
perhaps to 30 men. The inner wall is formed 
into buildings comprising the common quarters, 
with blacksmith and other workshops; the dwel- 
ling house, with a large distillery house, and 
other buildings occupying more the center of 
the area. 

"It is built upon a pond-like stream, at times a 
running creek communicating with the Rio de 
los Americanos, which enters the Sacramento 
about two miles below. The latter is here a 



/' 



1 6 THE life: and times of 

noble river, about three hundred yards broad, 
deep and tranquil, with several fathoms of water 
in the channel and its banks continuously 
timbered. There were two vessels belonging to 
Captain Sutter at anchor near the landing — one 
a large, two-masted lighter, and the other a 
schooner, which was shortly to proceed on a 
voyage to Fort Vancouver for a cargo of goods." 



DESPERATE FIGHT WITH INDIANS. 

In the summer of 1840 several hundred painted 
warriors, armed with guns, bows and spears col- 
lected on the banks of the Cosumnes river, 
twenty miles away, tor the avowed purpose of 
attacking the settlement. 

Captain Sutter left a small garrison at home 
with cannons and other arms all loaded, and with 
eight brave men (and brave they must have been), 
two of whom were expert vaqueras, went to attack 
them. This, the reader will bear in mind, was 
before the fort was built. 

The unsuspecting warriors imprudently en- 
camped, the night before the battle, without set- 



GEN. JOHN A. SU'iTKR. l^ 

ting sentinels, and at daybreak were surprised in 
their camp. The eneni}^ being thrown into dis- 
order and confusion fought at a disadvantage, 
and, after a hard fight, in which they lost se- 
verely, a settlement was adjusted to the entire 
satisfaction of Sutter. By virtue of a treaty with 
these warriors they became his friends and allies, 
enabling him to conquer nearly all of the San 
Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. 



WHITE HORSE AND PICKET. 

Some time in October or November, 1848, a 
resident of the fort, who was an emigrant from 
Oregon, and who went by the name of the 
"White Horse," undertook to fence in an open 
space in the fort. C. E. Picket, Esq., also a resi- 
dent at the fort, and since a well-known character 
in the State, claimed the open space, and taking 
the law in his own hands knocked the fence down. 
"White Horse" started to rebuild his fence, and 
Picket interfered; an altercation occurred, and 
Picket shot and killed his antagonist. 



l8 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

There were then 200 white men at tlie fort, one 
of whom (William Tanner), was acting as sheriff 
by appointment of Captain Sutter. He took 
Picket in charge, detaining him as prisoner. 
Picket refused to submit, but Tanner was a man 
of great strength and courage, and well fitted for 
his office. He disarmed his prisoner and forced 
him to submit. It was then and there deter- 
mined that Picket should be tried for murder. A 
court was instituted, with Sam Brannan on the 
bench. A jury of eight was impanelled to try 
the case. The trial came off the same day of the 
homicide, and Picket pleaded his own case. 
Brannan in his charge to the jury instructed it 
that they lived in a country where there were 
laws, and that the laws should be obeyed. But 
that if their verdict was imprisonment there was 
no prison in the place where the culprit could be 
kept. The jury, after being out six hours, agreed 
upon a verdict of not guilty. 



CEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I9 



THE WEB FOOT. 



In the beginning of the year '46 there resided 
at the fort a good-natured, unsuspecting fellow — 
a native of Pike county, Missouri, and who went 
by the name of "Bob." He had heard many 
favorable reports of the Willamette valley, Ore- 
gon, and had partially arranged matters to go 
there and make himself a home. 

Isaac Spiker, a jolly man who relished a joke 
hugely, and who had lived in Oregon, but was 
at this time sojourning at the fort, said to the 
Pike countyan: "Bob, you'll not get me to go to 
Oregon and live with them web- feet, no how. 
I've tried it wonst, an' I say Bob, you'd better 
take some of my advice while it's goin', and let 
well enough alone " 

"I say Spiker," said Bob, "Why do they call 
them thare as lives in Oregon web- feet?" 

Spiker, when a boy, scalded one of his feet so 
seriously that when the sore healed his toes con- 
solidated. Now was offered a rare opportunity. 
"Bob," I say, "after a man lives in Oregon a 



20 The i.ii^E and Times of 

while his toes grow together from foot to nail, 
and that is why he is called a web-foot." 

"Spiker," said Bob, "I don't believe that 
yarn, no how;" whereupon Spiker drew off one 
of his boots and exhibited a genuine webbed foot, 
and no mistake about it. "Bob," looking 

greatly surprised, exclaimed, "By , I'll 

never go to that ■ country." 



MAJOR RINGGOLD. 

In 1 841 Captain Sutter was visited at the fort 
by Major Ringgold, seven officers, and fifty men 
of Commodore Wilkes' exploring squadron, then 
lying in San Francisco bay. Professor J. D. 
Dana was also a member of the visiting party. 
Captain Sutter, with consummate courtesy, dis- 
patched a servant with saddled horses for the 
officers and a secretary to invite the company to 
the fort. The beauty of this courteous act will 
appear more fully when it is remembered that 
had a band of Spanish cattle been grazing along 
the line of travel from the embarcadero to the 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 21 

fort the party, unprotected and on foot, would 
have imperiled their lives in the transit, for one 
of those steers or heifers, especially the latter, on 
the plain was little less formidable than a grizzly. 

Wilkes subsequently became famous through 
the Trent affair, which resulted in the arrest and 
discharge of Sirs Mason and Slidell of the Con- 
federate States during the civil war, and putting 
at rest the troublesome question involving the 
"right of search." 

This exploring party was in the service of the 
United States, and its mission here was to extend 
a knowledge of the geography and the geology 
of the Pacific coast. 



THE IvIFe; and times of 



BODEGA AND FORT ROSS. 

In i8i2 the government of California, under 
Spanish rule, granted the Russian Fur Company 
the privilege of erecting huts or buildings and 
establishing settlements at Bodega and Ross; the 
former place lying about fifty miles north of San 
Francisco and the latter twenty -five miles further 
up the coast. 

These settlements were made for the purpose 
of salting the beef and caring for the hides and 
tallow of wild cattle and of their own cattle as 
well, and of raising grain and vegetables for other 
Russian settlements too high in latitude for agri- 
cultural pursuits. 

The permission granted by Mexico to settle at 
these points was never reduced to the dignity and 
virtue of a written instrument. However, the 
settlements flourished and presented a formidable 
appearance; quite too much so to be entirely 
agreeable to the Californians. Orchards were 
planted; ranches were improved, and corn, 
turnips, cabbage, potatoes, wheat and barley 



GKN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 23 

were grown and habitations were erected. The 
lumber used in these settlements was shipped 
from Norway, there being- no saw- mill on the 
Pacific Coast ot North America. The upper 
settlement grew to a population of 300, in which 
were embraced Muscovites, Kodiacs, Kodiac and 
Russian half breeds and California Indians. 

To Spain and Mexico the growth and pros- 
perity of these settlements were fruitful sources 
of jealousy and unrest. The Mexican gov- 
ernment remonstrated against the steady en- 
croachments of their neighbors. This remon- 
strance was wholly disregarded by the Russians. 
General Vallejo in the meantime advanced upon 
the settlement with a force of armed men, but, 
deeming his strength insufficient to reduce the 
place, retired without further demonstrations of 
hostility. 

Spain then made a formal demand, which 
proved to be quite as inoperative as the remon- 
strance of Mexico had been. They defied all 
authority and continued to "hold the fort" until 
1841, carrying on a large and profitable trade; 
when, having stripped the shore of sea otter and 
other fur-bearing animals, and being threatened 



24 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

by Indians, Californians and Mexicans, they sold 
out and withdrew from the country. 

In the autumn of 1841 Alexander Rotchoff, 
the governor of Bodega and Fort Ross, visited 
Sutter and offered to sell him the possessions 
under discussion. In the purchase of this prop- 
erty there were but two competitors, Jacob P. 
Leese and Captain Sutter. The former offered 
$25,000 and the latter made the purchase for 
$30,000 and was dined and wined by the Russian 
governor. 

Embraced in this purchase were 2,000 cattle, 
1,000 horses, 50 mules, 250 sheep, a herd of 
swine, several pieces of ordnance, one four- 
pound brass field piece and some smaller arms, 
farming and mechanical implements and a 
schooner of 180 tons burden and a barrel of 
flints, thrown away by Napoleon in his retreat 
from Moscow. 

Sutter dispatched some men and a clerk to 
receive the property and bring the live-stock to 
New Helvetia. Some of this stock was lost in 
transit; one hundred head of cattle alone were 
drowned in crossin"' the Sacramento river. The 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 25 

most ol the liides wt'ic saved, which Sutter aller- 
ward observed "were our bank notes." 

A young man in Sutter's emi:)loy, by the 
name of Bidwell, was sent to Bodeo^a, where he 
remained about a year, in charge of the property 
not yet removed. 

One of the pieces of artillery included in the 
Russian purcliase has a history written by Judge 
J. H. McKune and published in Themis — 
(a very ably edited paper of the past) dated 
October 5, 1889, which, as it is quite interesting, 
I give in full: 

• "It was cast at a foundry of the Russian govern- 
ment at St. Petersburg in 1804. It is 40 inches 
long, 3}^ inch bore; cast with two handles that 
two men can handle or carry it. 

"This gun was presented by the Czar to the 
Russian American Company, and by that com- 
j)any to Captain Sutter, in December, 1841. 

"It was one of the first guns mounted in the 
southeast bastian of Sutter's fort, and was used 
by Captain Sutter in firing a salute to the Ameri- 
can flag hoisted over his fort at sunrise, July 4, 
1846. It was taken from the fort, placed in the 
hands of Commodore Stockton, used by him as 



26 



THE lylFE AND TIMES OF 



a field piece by his command in his advance from 
San Pedro to Los Angeles; did good service in 
the battle of San Pasqual, December 8, 1846, and 
again at Los Angeles, January 8 and 9, 1847. 

"The gun was then transferred to Colonel 
Mason's command, First United States Dra- 
goons, and was by him returned to Captain Sut- 
ter after the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, md 
Captain Sutter presented it to the California 
Pioneers, at San Francisco, in the archives of 
which society it still remains, 

"The gun has a chamber running to a point at 
the vent, and takes, for a charge, eight ounces 
of powder." 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 27 



CAPTAIN JOHN C. FREMONT. 

On the 6th day of March, 1843, Captain John 
C. Fremont, in command of an exploring expe- 
dition sent out by the sfovernment of the United 
States, reached Sutter's Fort in a distressed 
condition. He left Fort Vancouver, on the 
Columbia river, in November on his return to 
the United States. When crossing the moun- 
tains lying between Oregon and Sutter's Fort, 
he encountered heavy storms and deep snows, 
where he and his men suffered untold hardships. 
Their beasts of burden perished, and the starving 
men wandered on with the grim prospect of 
death before them, till reason — in some instances 
— was driven from her empire. Fremont, being 
a strong, active and resolute man, and possessing 
great power of endurance, left his command and 
pressed on to Sutter's fort for relief. 

Sutter, on being apprised of the distressed 
condition of these men, dispatched a man with 
a pack animal to minister to their wants. Fre- 
mont and his men remained at the fort, sharing 



28 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

the hospitality of their generous host until all 
were well recruited, and the animals were newly 
shod; when, on the 24th day of the same month, 
the expedition set out for the United States. 



THE FLOUR MILL. 

Within the walls of the fort was rather a primi- 
tive and rudely-constructed mill for grinding 
wheat and barley. A large stone was placed 
upon the ground, with the upper side reduced to 
a level surface, on the top of which was another 
stone, also reduced to a suitable surface and 
dimension, and made to spin by means of an 
arm or sweep, to which animal power was 
attached. The number of mules necessary to 
communicate motion to the stone is variously 
reported to have been — ranging from one to 
twelve. Compared to a modern corrugated 
roller mill with all its appliances, the mill in 
Sutter's fort would suffer. 

The mill was m charge of an Indian, who 
dressed the stones, dictated all repairs and im- 
provements and had the management of the 



GEN. JOHN A. vSUTTER. 29 

entire plant. Men who ate bread made of the 
"Digger mill" flour found no fault if they 
antagonized with no lumps larger than a bird's 
egg. No woman in the settlement clamored for 
Graham flour, no other kind being made there. 



SUTTER S DISTILLERY. 

Within the walls of the fort, Sutter erected a 
distillery for the purpose of converting into an 
exhilirating beverage the wild grapes, of which 
there was an abundance along the Sacramento 
river and its tributaries. He also ran high 
wines. This enterprise he was soon forced to 
abandon, as he was unable to keep the liquor 
from the Indians, or rather to keep the Indians 
from the liquor. Every Indian appeared to 
possess a worm of his own and a strong inclina- 
tion to run "high wines" through it. Sutter 
once said to a young squaw, who was employed 
at times by him in making blankets, and who 
had a well-grounded relish for strong drink, 
"Anita, if you could have three choices and all 
you want of each, what would you choose first?" 






30 



THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 



"Vino," (wine) she quickly responded. 

"What would you select for the second," 
asked Sutter. 

"Amigo" (a lover) was her reply. 

"And what would you take for your third and 
last choice?" 

After a little hesitation she said she would take 
a little more vino. She declared she first drank 
it at the San Jose Mission. 




Anita. 



GEN, JOHN A. SUTTER. 31 



THE TANNERY. 



Sutter built a tannery also, where he carried 
on an extensive and profitable business. This 
enterprise closed very abruptly after the gold 
find of '48. Crazed by the stories of the gold 
field, his men, except a few Indians who remained 
on roustabout duty and a mechanic whom he 
paid ten dollars a day, left New Helvetia, headed 
for Sutter's mill. Two Indians managed the 
ferry and made, as Sutter observed, good and 
honest returns of the money received until they 
had mingled too much with the whites. 



EXECUTION OF RAPHERO. 

In the summer of 1845 a courier brought word 
to Sutter that Castro and some of the jealous 
Spaniards at San Jose had incited the Indians to 
attack New Helvetia, burn the grain which was 
then ready for the harvester, and, if possible, to 
take the life of Sutter. Some of the narrow- 
minded Californians, ot whom Castro was justly 




Raphcro. 



GKN. JOHN A, SU'TTER. 33 

an accredited member, had looked upon him as 
a foreign invader whose growing strength might 
some day enable him to defy their authority. 

Evidences of dissatisfaction had appeared on 
several occasions and the feeling had finally 
ripened into open hostility. Raphero, a well- 
known Mokelumne chief, was in command of the 
mercenary Indians who were charged with the 
work of destruction and death, and who were on 
their march and about 300 strong. 

The celebrated chief in command was an 
anomaly. Few men as brave as he, are so 
treacherous and unworthy of confidence. Usually 
men of great courage have a warm, tender 
and kind heart. Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon 
were, at times, as tender as a flower. 

Sutter gave Raphero, on a former occasion, a 
token of friendship and good will and presented 
him with a fine horse and saddle. But the 
Spaniards, supported by Castro, for ready pay 
or rich promises, presumably the latter, that 
being carried by them as their principal stock in 
trade, induced him to undertake a task they had 
not the courage to perform. 

In bravery he ranked with King Philip and 



34 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

Tecumseh. But while they presented an asso- 
ciated beauty of oratory, bravery and statesman- 
ship that dazzled the gaze of the world, he 
possessed no valid claim to any virtue but 
physical courage. 

Sutter, knowing the cunning and energy of 
the enemy, resolved upon prompt action. A few 
brave men, whites and Indians, under command 
of Kit Carson went to intercept him. They 
found the warriors encamped in a stronghold in 
the thick brush that skirted the banks of the 
Mokelumne river. After a spirited engagement, 
in which the enemy lost severely, the whites hav- 
ing exhausted their ammunition and being un- 
able to dislodge the aborigines withdrew from the 
field, leaving them free to skulk amid the rag- 
ged chaparrals. 

There was a son of Erin in Carson's command, 
and a fine fellow he was, too, whose hat was quite 
high in the crown, through which a ball passed 
just above his head while in the engagement. 
After having returned to the fort he related the 
circumstance, declaring that had his hat been 
low-crowned the ball would have entered his 
brain. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 35 

A few months later the chief, who commanded 
the warriors in the campaign against New Hel- 
vetia, it was alleged had killed his brother-in-law. 
On this charge he was arrested and brought to 
the fort, and was tried for murder. 

Sutter had been duly appointed Alcalde (jus- 
tice) in and for the northern district of California 
by the Mexican government, and therefore was 
clothed with authority, in his district, to arrest, 
try, and condemn or acquit at will, and to try 
and determine all civil cases. 

The trial was conducted in the Spanish lan- 
guage, an interpreter being employed when neces- 
sary. Raphero, who spoke Spanish with some 
fluency, conducted his own case. The situation 
would have been painfully embarrassing to almost 
any one but him. Far from his tribe he must be 
tried for homicide before a judge whose grain he 
had sought to destroy, and against whose life he 
had conspired. He denied the allegation and 
argued, in support of his innocence, that he held 
a lieutenant's commission under the Mexican 
government, and that by virtue of his commission 
he was clothed with authority to punish a man for 
stealing a horse in his district, that the penalty 



36 THE IvIFK AND TIMES OF 

fixed by law for horse-stealing was death, and 
that his brother-in-law was a horse thief. 

This position was well taken and ably argued; 
but unfortunately the chief was unable to prove 
that the slain man was a horse thief, and he 
was unable also to produce his commission; 
and it was doubtful whether he ever possessed 
one. 

He met his fate with the coolness and bravery 
that were characteristic of his behavior all through 
life. He walked to the place of execution with a 
haughty and dignified bearing. 

Thus closed the career of a chief and warrior 
whose influence for evil at home and disturbance 
abroad, and whose insidious artifice, daring, and 
treachery combined in making him an object 
much to be dreaded, and whose freedom imper- 
iled the life and property of every white settler 
within the plain of his orbit. His scalp was 
nailed over the main gateway of the fort, where 
his long black hair waved in the breeze as if 
mourning for the brains it had so long decorated, 
and as a warning to him who contemplated burn- 
ing his neighbor's grain, reducing a settlement, 
or taking the life of his fellow man. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 37 



THE MILL WHERE GOLD WAS FOUND. 

The arrival of Mormons extended the settle- 
ment and increased the demands for building 
material and for women. With a view to supply- 
ing the former article, Sutter sent out an explor- 
ing party with instruction to search for good 
timber, good water power, and good location, 
with accessibility as the determining factor. 

James W. Marshall, of whom this work fur- 
nishes a brief biography, was selected as the man 
best calculated to perform the task. He was, at 
this time, in the maturity of his strength, being 
about thirty-five years old, and was active, strong, 
and energetic, and a good judge of timber. Ac- 
cordingly, some time in May, 1847, he was dis- 
patched, with one of Sutter's most intelligent and 
trustworthy Indians as interpreter and guide, up 
the south fork of the American river to select a 
mill-site. 

Precipitous hills, overhanging cliffs and deep 
caiions, along which a mountain stream dashes 
its winding way, have suitable locations for a saw 
mill, almost as far between as angel s visits. 



38 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

In due time Marshall reported favorably, 
stating that he had found a desirable location for 
a mill at a place called Coloma, and about forty 
miles east of the fort. The water power, he 
said, was fine, the timber abundant and of excel- 
lent quality, and the plant could be easily 
reached by a system of natural ridges extending 
along the foot-hills in nearly a direct line from 
the fort. 

The progress of an undertaking is usually 
proportioned to the magnitude of the enterprise; 
delays increasing with increasing magnitude. 
Not until late in August was the contract for 
building the mill entered into between Marshall 
and Sutter. This contract was drawn up by 
General John Bidwell, and provided that Mar- 
shall should erect and run the mill, and receive 
one-fourth of the lumber as compensation for his 
services, and Sutter was to furnish the building- 
material and supplies and board and pay the 
men employed. 

Some of Marshall's admirers claim at this late 
date that he was a joint and equal partner with 
Sutter in the mill. This story is both unreason- 
able and untrue. Marshall's purse, in longitude, 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 



39 




Sutter's Mill. 



40 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

was sorely wanting. In fact, he was habitually 
short of ducats. This suggestion is by no means 
calculated, nor intended, to reflect upon him. It 
was his misfortune; and in this respect he was 
not alone. But the mill was Sutter's when it 
was built; it was Sutter's when it was torn down; 
and as Sutter's, it will go down in history to the 
latest posterity. 

Marshall so far completed the mill as to cut 
some lumber in January, 1848. By experiment- 
ing, it was found that the tail-race was insuffi- 
cient to convey the water from the wheel. To 
remove this difficulty, the water was turned into 
the race from the river each night for the purpose 
of deepening its bed and cutting away its margin. 

One morning, about the 24th of January, while 
examining the race, which was now empty, 
to ascertain what service the water had rendered 
him through the night, he saw some yellow 
grains sticking in the crevices of the rocks in the 
bed of the stream which, on examination, he 
found to be some kind of metal, and it occurred 
to him that it might be gold. 

Late that night, in a heavy rain, he arrived at 
the fort, forty miles away, wet, bespattered with 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 4I 

mud, and appearing very strangely. Sutter's 
surprise at his arrival on such a dark and stormy 
night at so late an hour was increased when 
Marshall said he wished to see him alone. They 
repaired to a private room. Sutter did not know 
what to think of the singular behavior of Mar- 
shall, who now asked to have the door locked. 

In after years, in relating this circumstance, 
Sutter said he kept one eye on his loaded rifle. 
Thinking it inexpedient to lock himself in a room 
alone with Marshall, he remained inert for a while. 
On becoming convinced that they would not be 
disturbed, Marshall drew a pouch from his pocket 
and emptied about an ounce of the precious 
grains upon the table. The pieces of yellow 
metal thus exhibited by Marshall, varied in size, 
of which a large grain of wheat would be an 
average. 

A placer miner of moderate experience, would 
have known the metal was gold by the shape of 
the grains; as placer gold, from whatever mine 
and of whatever size the pieces, has, in its origi- 
nal condition, a form or shape peculiar to itself. 
Although, out of ten thousand pieces, no two 
may be fashioned alike, it nevertheless maintains 



42 THE WFE AND TIMES OF 

an identity distinct in shape from all other 
metals. 

Sutter calmly asked him where he got it. 
Marshall said he had picked it up in the tail-race 
at the saw- mill at Coloma; that the laborers, 
whites and Indians, were picking- it up, and that 
he believed it could be obtained in large quan- 
tities. Sutter, being incredulous, expressed some 
doubt about its being gold. Marshall, aglow 
with excitement, said he was certain it was gold. 

After a little search Sutter found, among his 
stores, a bottle of nitric acid, and submitted the 
metal to a chemical test, when it was found to 
be pure gold. How big with importance was 
this embryo in the womb of the future. It was 
the aurora of a commercial era, 

Marshall, it is said, returned to Coloma that 
same night, making a horseback journey of 
eighty miles without an interval in which to 
sleep or recuperate, and half of this distance was 
covered in a night darkened with overhanging 
clouds and made dismal by a driving rain. He 
insisted that Sutter return with him that night. 
Thinking it inexpedient, Sutter declined doing 
so, but promised to set out in the morning for 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 43 

the scene of the discovery. On reaching a point 
on the road within fifteen miles of his saw- mill, 
Sutter saw something coming out of the thick 
chaparral (a shrub with a multitude of woody 
brush stems densely interwoven) on all fours, 
which, at first, he thought was a grizzly bear, 
but on closer inspection, found it to be Marshall, 
who, in his anxiety and impatience, was return- 
ing from the mill to meet him. 

Instead of being elated over the gold find, Sut- 
ter was visited with dark forebodings. He had 
been to $25,000 expense on a flouring mill and 
mill race at Brighton (a point on the American 
river, six miles east of the fort), both of which 
were in an unfinished condition; he had expend- 
ed $10,000 on his Coloma saw- mill, which would 
eventually remain idle should the gold fever set 
in, and tannery and grain-fields would be fruit- 
less for want of laborers when a knowledge of the 
discovery became general. 

To guard against a conjecture so well founded, 
he modestly asked his employees to keep the 
matter a secret for six weeks, during which time 
he would push his unfinished business and shape 
things generally, for the great carnival of gold 



44 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 

which he plainly saw was soon to follow. With 
his request, his men promised faithfully to com- 
ply, and he returned to the fort after having; 
remained three days at Coloma. 



THE DISCOVERY MADE KNOWN. 

The secret was too great to be long kept. 
"True it is that murder will out." A drunken 
teamster, in possession of the secret, fearing he 
would not be able to keep it without help, asked 
a Mormon merchant to assist him. Sutter sent 
the teamster to the mill with supplies. He, 
having heard in some way that gold had been 
found there, managed to procure a small quantity 
of the "dust." On returning to the fort, he 
repaired to a neighboring store kept by a Mor- 
mon, and called for a bottle of whisky. Tangle- 
foot being scarce and expensive, and the 
teamster poor pay, the merchant refused to let 
him have it without the cash. The teamster 
assured him he had plenty of money, exhibiting 
at the same time a quantity of gold dust. No 
"pearls before swine." The Mormon, knowing 



GEN. JOHN A. SU'rTER. 45 

the character of the metal, was astonished. He 
let the customer have the bottle of whisky and 
asked where he got the gold. He refused to tell 
until he had imbibed quite freely of the liquor, 
when he told all about the discovery at the mill. 
The exciting tale spread like a scandal in high 
life, running up and down the coast like a tidal 
wave. Nor was the news long confined to the 
sparsely inhabited territory of California. It 
crossed the continent, traversed the seas, and in 
a few months found its way into every fireside 
circle all over the civilized world. 



Sutter's fort an objective point. 

Homeseekers, travelers and exploring parties 
who visited the western shore, and especially in 
the latitude of California, before and after the 
discovery of gold in '48, made Sutter's fort an 
objective point. A few months after the dis- 
covery, boxes, chests and every description of 
baggage were seen at the great commercial 
centers of every civilized nation on the globe, 
labelled, marked and checked for "Sutter's 



46 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Fort, California." But to the emigrant who had 
experienced the long and perilous journey of 
crossing the plains, with a pathway shadowed by 
unfriendly Indians, did the thought of Sutter's 
fort have a peculiar charm. 

When they gained the summit of the majestic 
Sierras, after weary months of toil; with their 
beasts of burden reduced in numbers and condi- 
tion; with ascanty supply of pasture in view, and 
the party themselves existing on food not the 
most desirable, and that, too, measured out 
from the wasting stores; with their distress and 
dark foreboding, already nearing the limit of 
human endurance; aggravated by accumulating 
evidences of near approaching storms, so over- 
powering and so terrible at high mountain alti- 
tudes, the thought of reaching Sutter's fort, I 
repeat, must have quickened the fondest hope 
and dearest heart beat. 

The story of Sutter's hospitality had reached 
their ears in their distant homes and the memory 
of it was never so sweet as now. It was like a 
star of hope on eternity's ocean. No man ever 
reached the fort in distress except his wants were 
gratuitously removed ; no visitor was ever 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 47 

despondent except words of encouragement were 
iddressed to him; was his journey's end not 
reached, he was furnished with a passport (an 
essential document to a traveler in a Spanish 
realm) and sent on his way rejoicing. 

When the settlement was threatened with an 
avalanche of barbarians in search of scalps, the 
white settlers, from a radius of a hundred miles 
or more, taking informal leave of their domiciles, 
streamed into the fort for mutual aid and protec- 
tion. When the fugitive, pale and panting, 
followed by his murderous pursuers, entered the 
fort, he felt as I suppose a saint will when he 
concludes the gauntlet of life and enters the new 
Jerusalem in the "sweet by and by." 

At the fort the hungry were fed, the houseless 
were sheltered and the traveler found rest. The 
trapper, on whose trail some wily and irate chief had 
set the demons of hell, lost no time in pacing the 
distance between him and the fort, the gateway 
of which was open to receive him. The fort was 
to him what the city of refuge was to the Israel- 
ites of antiquity. 

We have thus seen that Sutter's fort was an 
objective point. Objective, because a place of 



48 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

inquiry. Objective, because a place of refuge 
and repose. Objective, because hospitality was 
there dispensed with a generous hand. 

The story of Sutter and his fort is safely 
embalmed in the memory of the world, where it 
will remain while the treasures of security and 
the nobility of action attract the admiration of 
man. 

THE FORT IN RUINS. 

Of the great throng of adventurers who rushed 
into California in '49 headed for the gold fields, 
few appeared to know but little, and care less, 
about the property rights of individual owners. 

They appropriated to their own use, things 
which did not belong to them, without even inquir- 
ing after the owner or thanking him when he 
was made known to them. They seemed to 
think Providence had provided the good things 
especially for their wants and necessities. The 
increase of lawlessness kept pace with the increase 
of immigration. They had left home to heal a 
financial disorder, and appeared to be acting 
under the advice the Quaker gave his son who 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 



49 




50 THE I,IFE AND TIMES OF 

was about to leave home: "John, get rich; 
honestly, if thee can; but get rich." 

The brick, lumber and other material used in 
constructing and finishing the fort were removed 
piecemeal; some of which was dishonestly 
utilized elsewhere, to satisfy avarice, and some 
was borne away through an innocent desire 
to possess some relic o^the famous fort to adorn 
a cabinet of curios. A piece of wood, a scrap of 
iron, which had served some purpose there, 
or a nail on which Sutter, Fremont or Car- 
son ,may possibly have hung a coat or a hat, in 
the palmy days of long ago, was carried away by 
relic hunters, until the walls were so far removed 
as to obscure the foundation. The fort was not 
ruined while Sutter was there. 

In 1849 he rented one room in the fort for $200 
per month. 

I will add, the main building standing near the 
center of the fort was never destroyed, although 
it became dilapidated. It would have shared the 
fate of the rest of the fort had it not been 
protected by municipal authority. This main 
building, which served as a landmark, was 34 x 
64 feet, with two stories; the first being used for 
a store-house, and the second for a dining room. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTLER. $1 

I have visited the place when the only evi- 
dence of a fort to be seen, was this building, 
which was then rapidly falling into ruins. A cut 
of this building, as it appeared after the walls of 
the fort had been entirely removed, is given 
in this work. 



THE FORT RECLAIMED. 

An organized society, entitled the Native Sons 
of the Golden West, purchased, a few years ago, 
of Benj. Merrill, of Chicago, the ground on which 
the historical fort had been erected. This 
property was owned by a gentleman who did not 
care whether he sold it or not. It was purchased 
for the round sum of $20,000, which was raised 
by subscription, under the auspices of the Native 
Sons. 

The restoration of this fort had been contem- 
plated for upwards of twenty years, and an effort 
had been put forth in that direction by the 
Pioneers and others, but without success. The 
Society of Pioneers should not have done the 
work. They had long before acted their part in 



52 THE IvIFp: and times of 

the great drama. They had borne a part in both 
palmy and trying- days that their sons should 
delight to perpetuate in the memory of the 
world. Grandly hav^e they done their duty. 
The walls of this structure will whisper to their 
honor when gazed upon by visiting legions a 
thousand years hence. 

Among the generous donors to the purchasing 
fund were Col. Fred. Crocker, the Record- 
Unio7i and the Bee. 

The Native Sons deeded the property to the 
State of California, for the consideration that she 
restore the fort to its original condition and pro- 
tect it from depredation and decay. 

In the winter of iSgo-'gi the legislature appro- 
priated jS20,ooo for the restoration of the fort In 
i892-'93 the legislature made an appropriation 
of $15,000 more to complete the work; making 
a total expenditure for purchase and improve- 
ment of $55,000. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 53 



JAMES WILSON MARSHALL 

Was born in Hope township, Hunterdon 
county, New Jersey, in 1812 His father was a 
coach and wagon builder, and he was brought 
up to the same trade. His early life presents no 
features of special interest; but at early manhood 
he began to yearn for pioneer life, and turning 
his back upon the place of his birth he journeyed 
to Crawfordsvilie, Indiana, where he engaged his 
services for a few months as carpenter, after 
which time he journeyed westward to Warsaw, 
Illinois. Not having reached the Mecca of his 
pilgrimage, after a brief stay at this place, he 
resumed his journey westward, pulling up this 
time at the Platte Purchase, near Fort Leaven- 
worth, in Missouri, where he located a homestead 
and entered into agricultural husbandry and trad- 
ing. 

He struggled in this place for several years 
contending with poverty in chief and ague on the 
side. A party of immigrants was being made up 
in the neighborhood, with California for its objec- 
tive point. He had a "round-up," gathering 



54 



THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 




fames IV. Marshall. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 55 

together his stock (one horse), and joined the 
party. They started about the first of May, 
1844, with a train of a hundred wagons. They 
reached Cahfornia by the way of Oregon, thence 
by Shasta, and went into camp on Cache Creek, 
about forty miles from the city of Sacramento. 

Sutter's fort was already erected and was re- 
garded with envy by the Mexicans, awe by the 
Incians, and admiration by all others. Thither 
Marshall went, and entered into Sutter's employ 
some time in July, 1845. 

Sutter was engaged in raising grain and stock, 
and also in merchandising on a small scale, 
mostly in blankets and supplies for trappers and 
hunters. The blankets were made by Indians 
who had been instructed in the business by their 
Franciscan masters at the San Jose Mission. 
Marshall having in early life become accustomed 
to the use of tools and possessing some knowl- 
edge of mechanical principles, was employed for 
a time in repairing and constructing spinning 
wheels, stocking plows and in building and re- 
pairing carts and ox yokes, and in the capacity 
of a Jack-at-all- trades. 

As a man, Marshall was stubborn about the 



56 THE lylFE AND TIMES OF 

most of things, and wanting in perseverance and 
mental concentration in the reahn of lofty 
thought. Whatever may be said for or against 
him, he certainly was a useful man in and about 
the colony. 

The honor of discovering gold in California is 
justly settled upon him. True it is, that prior 
discoveries were made and gold was actually 
taken from a mine farther south and conveyed to 
the Mint in Philadelphia. This, however, at- 
tracted but little attention, as the precious metal 
did not appear in quantities sufficient to induce 
extended mining experiments, and the mine as a 
wealth-producing agency became extinct, or 
nearly so. At other times gold was found, but 
no importance was attached to the discovery, as 
it was but little known and promised but small 
and very indefinite returns. 

And in the Coloma gold field it is claimed that 
one Peter Wymer, or Wimmer, one of Sutter's 
employees at Coloma, found the first nugget of 
gold in the tail-race, and that his wife boiled the 
specimen in a kettle of lye to test its virtue. 
This report may be, and doubtless is, true. At 
all events, for the sake of argument, we will con- 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 57 

cede its correctness. In as much as the fact 
remained a secret until long after Marshall 
broug-ht his discovery to light, the said Wymer 
can never share the honor of the great discovery. 
The world, by common consent, has settled upon 
James W. Marshall, and upon him alone, the 
honor of opening the gates to the boundless gold 
field and creating the greatest exodus of which 
history furnishes any account. Any attempt to 
vitiate his claims to a position so justly estab- 
lished is akin to an effort to overshadow the 
splendor of Columbus' fame by bringing forward, 
as against him, the claims of the Norsemen. But 
to elaborate the episodes of this distinguished 
man would swell this little volume beyond its 
original design. And as his name appears else- 
where in this work 1 must forego the pleasure of 
tracing further his individual career. 

It is a pleasure, however, to state that in Feb- 
ruary, 1872, the Legislature of California passed 
an Act, which was duly approved by the Gov- 
ernor, appropriating $200 per month for two 
years for his relief; providing, however, that the 
appropriation cease at his death in the event that 
he should die before the expiration of two years. 



58 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 

This appropriation was kept up until March, 
1876, when the Le*gislature passed an Act appro- 
priating $100 per month for two years, providing" 
that the warrants be not drawn after Marshall's 
death, which appropriation he continued to re- 
ceive to the close of his life. 

His friends tried to make a great man of him, 
but failed in every effort. He was not calculated 
for a great man; the requisite elements not being 
common to his nature. He discovered the gold 
by incident while in the employ of another man. 
Had he been in search of gold, basing a conclu- 
sion upon the deductions of geology, the appear- 
ance of the soil and the location of the place 
that the near presence of auriferous metal was 
indicated, I repeat had he found gold under cir- 
cumstances like these, he would have possessed 
an entirely different organism, and one which 
might have borne him to great distinction on the 
tide of his important discovery. He was mor- 
bidly jealous of Sutter, who was very popular 
with the pioneers, while he was just the reverse. 
Being disappointed in some of his earlier aspira- 
tions, and the shady side of life having been 
reached with no well-defined object established, 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 59 

and his financial and social status falling below a 
standard he might have desired, and with no 
strong ties of kindred to bind him to any particu- 
lar locality, he drifted about on the tide of cir- 
cumstances, when, bending under the influence of 
years, worn out and broken down, a condition 
hastened by the lorce of irregular habits, he died 
alone in a cabin near Coloma on the loth day of 
August, 1885, in his seventy-fourth year. 

At an expense of $5,000 a monument has since 
been erected to his memory and to perpetuate 
the day and place of his important discovery. 
The monument stands on the summit of Mar- 
shall Hill, at an altitude of 300 feet above the 
river, a half-mile from Sutter's mill site. 



6o THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 



FARMING. 



Sutter took great pleasure in looking over his 
great fields of waving grain. There being little 
or no rail timber in the valley, and as shipping 
fencing lumber from Norway by way of Cape 
Horn was slow, uncertain and expensive, the 
fields were enclosed with ditches. These ditches 
were dug and the plowing, sowing and harrow- 
ing were done by Indians. The plows were a 
trifle better than those used by the prophet 
Elisha, but were exceedingly rude and awkward. 
The soil, which was rich in grain-producing ele- 
ments, when broken into by one of these primi- 
tive plows would look up and laugh. 

The seed time, as well as the harvest time, ex- 
tended a wide latitude for discretion and conven- 
ience, a circumstance highly favorable to pioneer 
life, and especially adapted to the inertness of the 
Indians and Californians of Sutter's time, and 
who were in his employ. But the sight of a har- 
vest field of that date would be a treat to a farmer 
of to-day. True it is, that but few years have 
elapsed in the interim, but they have been years 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 6l 

of progress in arts and sciences; and then, too, 
Sutter was remote from his fatherland and all other 
civilized nations except Mexico and her province 
of California, both of which had steadily kept from 
fifty to one hundred years on the background of 
civilization, intellectual culture and husbandry. 

In imagination we see one hundred acres of 
golden grain, whose drooping heads indicate the 
fullness thereof, ready to rattle to the hum of a 
harvester, and one hundred wild Indians, vari- 
ously dressed, some being entirely naked, enter- 
ing the field, strangely equipped for the work. 

There was every model of "Armstrong" appli- 
ances, from a scythe down to a butcher- knife, 
exhibited there; some even pulling the grain up by 
the roots, or breaking the straw with their hands. 
One old Indian, whom some "Boston man" had 
enriched with the title of "Laban," was a regular 
harvest hand for years. He had by hook or by 
crook (presumably the former), procured from 
some stranded barque or antiquated ruins an old 
scythe of Teutonic invention, and had attached 
to it a snath, which he had selected from the 
underwood that grew on the banks of the Sacra- 
mento. 



62 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

When this tall, gaunt and grim-looking Indian 
entered the field with his harvesting outfit on his 
shoulder he bore no small resemblance to "Father 
"Time." 

But the threshing, when commenced, was soon 
over. It was done by horse power, after the fol- 
lowing manner: A hard, level piece of ground 
was well smoothed off and fenced, and a few 
weeks' cutting was piled about four feet high 
over the circular enclosure, and two hundred, more 
or less, wild horses were turned in to do the 
work. This was a picnic for the Indians, who 
drove the horses around in a circle over the 
grain. When they succeeded in getting them in 
a lively whirl they would sally in front of them 
and yell as only wild Indians can, when the 
frightened leaders of the band would snort "down 
brakes," and every horse, in an effort to bring a 
sudden halt, skated along with stiffened legs, turn- 
ing the straw bottom side up. In this way the 
threshing was done very rapidly. 

A Yankee suggested to Sutter that mules would 
do this work much better than horses. Experi- 
ence proved this suggestion to be wise. 

When the mules were all in the corral thev 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 63 

could be kept in motion very easily by the following- 
means: Hit one of them with a stone or a club, 
and he would kick the nearest mule, which, in 
turn, would kick indiscriminately, and so on, 
until every mule in the corral had kicked at least 
once, and many of them two or three times. 
The air was so full of straw one might have 
thought the grain stack had been captured by a 
cyclone. 

FLOGGING OF ADAM. 

Some of Sutter's men informed him that 
Adam, an Indian of a neighboring tribe, had 
been stealing and driving off some of his horses. 
A squad of well-armed and mounted men were 
sent after the offender, whom they captured and 
brought back to the fort for trial. Sutter, who 
was ex-officio judge, jury and counsel, presided 
over the deliberations (chiefly his own), with as 
much dignity as the presiding officer displayed at 
the trial of Warren Hastings. 

The trial of Adam (if trial it was), was con- 
ducted in Spanish, it being the language com- 
monly used in the settlement and throughout 



64 THE^IvlFE AND TIMKS OF 

California, at that time, a competent interpreter 
being always in attendance at court proceedings. 

George McKinstry, who acted as clerk, swore 
the witnesses and examined them. 

The Indian, who conducted his own case, was 
permitted to produce and question witnesses for 
himself. But he had no witnesses. From this 
court there could be no appeal. 

The evidence against him was so overwhel- 
ming that Sutter would have been justified, 
under the laws of the country, had he treated 
him to the luxury of a death sentence. But he 
was not a man to abuse his authority. He made 
the trial as formal as circumstances would allow, 
as the presence of formality is often sustaining in 
the discharge of duty. And he may have felt as 
a passenger did on a Norwegian barque which 
was foundering at sea. Thinking they would all 
be lost, he asked some one to pray. As none on 
board had ever prayed, he asked that a psalm be 
sung. No psalm singers aboard. He then sug- 
gested that some one pass the hat. 

The judge, jury and counsel (Sutter) sentenced 
the outlaw to thirty lashes of a lariet, well laid on. 
He was accordingly taken by the San Jose Mission 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 65 

Indians, lashed to a cannon and punished, as the 
sentence directed, by a stalwart Indian, who 
seemed to enjoy the recreation more than the 
man did who was receiving the castigation. 
The punished man was then washed, fed and 
cared for until sufficiendy recuperated to steal 
another horse, and then dismissed. 

These California Indians who could lie all 
right, but who seldom stole a thing they could 
not reach, had, many of them, been instructed 
by the holy fathers that it was wrong to steal, 
and that whoever stole from one of them (the 
fathers) would be condemned in the court of 
shades and punished by the great spirit 
after death. Fearing, however, that, through 
inadvertency, some of the cases might not be 
called up for adjudication, in the tribunal 
referred to, the fathers, anticipating the issue, 
assumed the prerogative of said court, and 
administered the punishment an indefinite period 
in advance. 

There is but little doubt that the miscreant, 
who knew but little about the after-land court, 
would rather have submitted his case to its chances 
than to him who had one eye on virgin Mary and 
the other eye on virgin somebody else. 



66 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

THE MORMONS AND THE FLAG. 

In 1846, when the enraged citizens ousted 
the Mormons from Nauvoo city, about fifteen 
hundred men, women and children of the Latter 
Day Saints, disgusted with American institutions, 
took their movableproperty and journeyed toward 
the setting sun. A few of the sect went to 
Beaver island, near Grand Travers bay, on Lake 
Michigan. Other prominent Mormons, who 
were at that time proselyting in various places, 
purchased the ship Brooklyn, and about two 
hundred more of the "pure in heart" sailed from 
New York City the last of January, 1846, expect- 
ing to purchase from Mexico a grant of land 
lying near San Francisco bay, where they landed 
on the 31st day of August, 1846. Montgomery 
had taken possession of San Francisco but a few 
weeks before, and had hoisted the stars and 
stripes over the public square. 

The day on which the Brooklyn sailed 
through the Golden Gate, was unusually mild 
and beautiful. The grandeur of the landscape 
was softened and blended by an atmosphere 
peculiar to that latitude, and which beautifies 
every object on which it rests along the Pacific 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 67 

shore. This was the earnestly and long souQ^ht 
haven of repose. Divinity had shaped their 
ends. This was the promised land. Here was 
the place to warble an unknown tongue in all the 
beauty of holiness. 

Here on this virgin soil, polygamous institu- 
tions would bud and blossom. The atmosphere, 
so mild and lovely, had not been contaminated 
with legislative enactments or constitutional laws. 
This was Eden regained. Every Adam could 
bask in a multiplicity of Eves. 

As the proud ship moved grandly over the 
dark waters of the bay and neared the city, one 
of the elders was observed to look very steadily 
toward the shore with his face changing appear- 
ance as often as a dying gold fish. All at once he 
pointed toward the place where our National 
emblem was floating, and exclaimed, with an 
emphasis of despair: "By God! there is that 
damned American Flag." 

A party was dispatched by the Mormons of 
San Francisco, to the emigrant train, under the 
leadership of Brigham Young, bearing the 
mournful tidings that the United States had 
taken California, and that it would be well for the 
emigrants under Brigham Young to select a 



68 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 

Mecca somewhere ia the interior, where they 
would be, for a time, at least, beyond the 
polluting: and ungodly influences of the civilized 
world. The advice was accepted, and the bor- 
ders of the beautiful Salt Lake, in Utah, became 
the chosen, temporary abode of the sanctified. 

VEHICLES. 

Wagons were, at the time of the gold dis- 
covery, a convenience wholly unknown in Call" 
fornia, carts being used for freighting and for 
pleasure riding, and were constructed in the 
following manner: A white- oak tree was cut in 
blocks about eight inches thick at the rim, and 
so tapering as to leave them ten inches or a foot 
thick at the center of the wheel. A hole seven 
or eight inches was bored and gouged out to re- 
ceive the axle. To the axle the deltoid end of a 
huge pole was attached. By continued use the 
axle grew smaller, but the hole through the wheel 
seldom did. Soap was used for lubricating. The 
groaning of one of these carts, when not lubri- 
cated, could be heard two miles on a still morn- 
ing, which music was suggestive of the final 
trump. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 69 

Tlie first wagon ever seen in California was 
sent as a present to one of the provincial g^over- 
nors by a Boston merchant. It was built for a 
pleasure carriage and after the most approved 
model of that date. No harness was sent with 
it, and as the presentee and his associates had 
never seen a horse hitched to a wagon, they 
were thrown upon their inventive genius. The 
governor had the carriage and it must be utilized. 
Two mounted vaqueros, one either side of the 
pole, each with a lariat, one end of which was 
made fast to the pommel of the saddle and the 
other end secured to the pole of the vehicle, 
sought, through their spirited steeds, to commu- 
nicate the desired motion to the vehicle with no 
means, except the resistance of air and gravita- 
tion, of checking any speed to which the 
carriage might attain. 

During this memorable drive (be the term 
allowable), up hill and down, here and there, 
dashing and fetching up like a patent snaftie, the 
carriage inspected every rut and every other 
obstruction along the thoroughfare, even veering 
five or six feet to procure a set-to with a feld- 
spar or granite boulder by the wayside. Some- 
times the governor was on his seat and some- 



70 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

times on his head. The carriage having been 
made in New England, where the famous "one- 
hoss shay" was constructed, endured the ramble 
remarkably well. The dash, which was of wood 
and of liberal proportions, looked like a Norman 
guide -board, of centuries agone, standing by a 
frontier thoroughfare, directing crusaders to the 
"Holy Land." The spirited equines, mistaking 
its use, supposed it to be a cavalry target and 
occasionally took a random shot at it. The 
governor, out of respect for the giver, ordered 
the carriage to be placed under a shed for safe 
keeping, where its remains, it is said, may be 
seen to this day. 

CASTRO REBELLION. 

In August, 1842, General Micheltorena 
arrived at San Diego, empowered by the Mexi- 
can government to assume both civil and military 
command in California. Strong opposition to 
this appointee was early demonstrated by the 
Californians under the leadership of General 
Jose Castro, and the disturbance growing out of 
the disaffection is, or should be, recognized as 
the Castro rebellion. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. ^l 

Sutter and Bidwell visited Micheltorena at 
Monterey, on which occasion the latter asked 
Sutter to aid him in putting down the rebellion, 
to which he consented. He made a bargain for 
his friends, however, before he set out in the 
campaign. He asked that every petition for land 
on which he (Sutter), as justice, had favorably 
reported should be no less binding than a formal 
grant. With this request the governor readily 
complied. 

This rebellion was so far successful as to oust 
Micheltorena, one of the best governors Califor- 
nia had ever had up to this time, and establish 
Pio Pico in his place, and Castro was appointed 
general. The deposed governor entered upon 
his official duties under the instruction to dis- 
possess Sutter, who, it had been reported, defied 
the authorities of Mexico. On hearing this, 
Sutter dispatched a courier, to meet the governor 
before he arrived at the capital city, with a well- 
timed letter written in French and sparkling with 
courtesy. This letter secured the good will of 
Micheltorena, with whom the Americans also, 
through Sutter, found favor. Sutter has been 
unjustly censured for the action he took in 
support of the governor. We should bear in 



72 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

mind the fact that Sutter was a Mexican citizen, 
having previously obtained his naturalization 
papers and was also a civil and military officer 
under the Mexican government. And had he 
joined the enemy, he would have been a rebel 
and his property, in the event of defeat, would 
have been confiscated. Believing that an extract 
from Sutter's journal relating to this affair will 
please my reader, I will quote him verbatim ad 
literatim: 

"In the fall of 1844 I went to Monterey with 
Major Bidwell and a few armed men (canallada 
& servants), how it was customary to travell at 
these times, to pay a Visit to Gen'l Micheltorena. 
I has been received with the greatest civil and 
Military honors. One day he gave a great 
Dinner. After Dinner all the Troupes were 
parading, and in the evening a balloon was sent 
to the higher regions, etc., etc. 

"At the time it looked very gloomy the people 
of the Country was arming and preparing to 
make a Revolution, and I got some sure and 
certain information of the British consul and other 
gentlemen of my acquaintance, which I visited 
on my Monterey trip. The did not know that 
the General and myself were friends, and told 



CiEN. JOHN A. SU'TTER. 73 

and discovered me the whole plan, that in a 
short time the people of the Country will be 
ready to blockade the General and his troupes in 
Monterey, and then take him prisoner and send 
him and his soldiers back to Mexico, and make a 
Gov'r. of their own people, etc. 

"I was well aware what we could expect, 
should they succeed to do this, they would drive 
us foreigners all very soon out of the Country, 
how they have done it once, in the winter 
1839. Capt. Vioget has already been enoraged 
by Castro & Alvarado to be ready with his 
vessel to take the General and his soldiers to 
Mexico. 

"I had a confidential Conversation with Gen'l 
Micheltoreno, who recieved me with great 
honors and Distinction in Monterey, after having 
him informed of all what is going on in the 
Country, he took his measures in a Counsel o^ 
war in which I has been present. I recieved my 
Orders to raise such a large auxiliary as I possi- 
bly could and to be ready at his Order. At the 
same time I received some cartridges and some 
small arms, which I had shipped on board the 
Alert, and took a passage myself for San Fran- 
cisco (or then Verba Buena). If I had travelled 



74 I'HE I<IFE AND TIMES OK 

by land, Castro would have taken me prisoner in 
San Juan, where he was laing in Ambush for me. 
In Verba Buena I remained only a few hours, as 
my Schooner was ready to receive me on board, 
having waited Ya. Ba. I visited the Officers of 
the Custom house and Castro's officers, which 
immediately after I left recieved an Order to 
arrest me, but I was under fair Way to Sacra- 
mento. 

"After my Arrival at the fort, I began to organ- 
ize a force for the regular General, Drill of the 
Indian Infanterie took place. The Mounted Rifle 
company, about one hundred Men of all Nations, 
was raised, of which Capt. Gartt was the com- 
mander. As all was under fair way and well 
organized and joint with a Detachment of Cali- 
fornia Cavallry (which deserted from Vallejo), 
with Music and flying Colors, on the ith January, 
1845, to join the General and comply with his 
Orders. Major Reading was left with a small 
garrison of Frenchmen, Canadians and Indians 
as commander of the upper Country. 

"Castro had his headquarters in the Mission of 
San Jose; he did not expect us so soon, as he 
was just commencing to fortify himselt, he ran 
away with his garrison; was collecting a stronger 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 75 

force, and wanted to March, but as he saw that 
I was on a good que vive for him, he left for 
Monterey to unite with the forces that was block- 
ading the General and his troops in Monterey, 
and advanced or runed to the lower Country 
to call or force the people there to take arms 
against the government. On the Salinas, near 
Monterey, the General was encamped, and with 
our united force, about 600 Men (he left a garri- 
son in Monterey), we pursued the enemy, and 
had to pursue him down to Los Angeles, the 
first encounter we had with the enemy was at 
Buena ventura, where we attacked him and drove 
them out of their comfortable quarters. While 
at and near Santa Barbara, a great many of soldiers 
of my Division Deserted; over 50 men of the 
Mounted Rifles, the detachment of California 
Cavalry deserted and joined their Countrymen, 
the ribells, likewise a good number of the Mexi- 
can Dragoons. 

"Near San Fernando (Mission) the enemy oc- 
cupied a fine position, and appeared in full 
strength, joined by a company of American Trad- 
ers coming from Sonora, and another company 
of the same consisting of traders and trappers; 
and the whole force of enemy was over 1,000 



76 THE UFE AND TIMES OF 

Men, well provided with everything, and our 
force has been no more as about 350 or 375 
men, and during the battle of Cavenga, near San 
fernando; the balance of the Mounted Riflemen 
in the artillery deserted, and myself fell in the 
hands of the enemy, and was taken prisoner, and 
transported to Los Angeles. 

"A few days after this the General, surrounded 
by the enemy, so that he could nothing more get 
to eat, capitulated; and after the necessary docu- 
ments was signed by both parties, the General 
was allowed to march, with Music and flying col- 
ors, to San Pedro, where some vessels were 
ready to take him and troops aboard; and after 
having delivered their arms, etc., proceeded up 
to Monterey to take the remaining garrison, the 
family of the General, and his privat property, 
likewise the family of some of the officers. This 
was the End of the reign of General- Governor 
Manuel Micheltorena. 

"The new government, under Governor Pio 
Pico and General Castro, etc., had the intention 
to shoot me; they were of the opinion that I had 
joined General Micheltorena voluntarily, but so 
soon as I could get my baggage and my papers, 
I could prove and show by the orders of my 



I 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 77 

^i>'eneral that I have obeyed his orders and done 
iny duty to the leo^al government. And so I was 
acquitted with all honors, and confirmed in my 
former offices as military commander of the 
northern frontier, * ^- ^ with the expressed wish 
that I might be so faithful to the new govern- 
ment as I had to General Micheltorena." 

The foregoing extract may direct the reader to 
the conclusion that the fame of our hero does not 
rest exclusively upon his ability as a linguist. It 
shows the action of a great mind struggling with 
a language he could not manage. Evidently, 
unlike Burret or Cushing^, the torce of his genius 
did not flow in the channel of tongues. 

The reader will incline to palliate Sutter's im- 
perfect English when he bears in mind the fact 
that he was upwards of thirty years old when he 
came to the United States, and that much of his 
time after his arrival here was spent among 
Kanakas, Diggers and Missourians. 



78 THE WFE AND TIMES OF 

BLACK EAGLE. 

About the last of April, 1846, Lieutenant Gil- 
lespie, of the United States Marine Corps, ar- 
rived with dispatches for Captain Fremont, who 
was in California in command of an exploring 
expedition, and who, having been opposed in his 
field of observation by the jealous and narrow- 
minded Castro, had set out from Sutter's fort on 
a journey to Oregon a day or two before Gilles- 
pie's arrival. Sutter furnished the latter with 
animals and a guide to conduct him to Peter 
Lassen's place, whence the animals were to be 
returned by the guide to the fort. 

Here Gillespie purchased some horses and 
hired a few brave mountaineers and pushed out 
on Fremont's trail in hot haste, hoping to over- 
take him before he reached the mountains. But 
the "Pathfinder," through intuition and experi- 
ence, had become expert in traversing roadless 
countries, and moved so rapidly it was doubtful 
whether he could be overtaken by the party ere 
he penetrated far into Oregon. 

Gillespie encountered a party ot Indians belong- 
ing to the Klamath tribe who were encamped on a 
river bank and engaged in salmon fishing. These 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 



79 



Indians were theiving and treacherous, and espe- 
cially hostile to the whites, whom they called "Bos- 
tfn men." They had strong bows, which in their 
dextrous hands would send one of their large 
steel-headed arrows over lOO yards and penetrate 




Black Eagle. 



three inches into a tree. They shot very 
rapidly and with remarkable accuracy. Some of 
the arrow-heads were made of obsidian. Those 
made of steel had been purchased of the Hudson 
Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. 

On this occasion the Indians showed no signs 



8o The life and timks of / 

of hostility, but behaved quite to the contrary.! 
The chief (Black Eagle), with a smile and a 
"hovv-dy," assisted the party in crossing tl/e 
stream. Gillespie's horses, from having beei 
almost constantly admonished by whip and spu-\ 
to a higher rate of speed, began to resemble a 
structure in an unfinished condition. 

Believing it to be his only chance to succeed, 
he dispatched Sam Neal, an expert mountaineer 
of great daring, on one of his fleetest horses 
under orders to overtake Fremont if possible. 
None but a strong and courageous man could 
have made the ride. His passage through a nar- 
row defile in the hills was disputed by a party of 
Indians. With the bridle reins in his teeth and 
a pistol in each hand he dashed at full speed 
through a shower of arrows, and firing to the 
right and left, escaped his pursuers, and reaching 
Fremont's camp, fell from his horse exhausted. 
Fremont ordered for him a cup of warm cofifee. 
On learning the perilous situation of Gillespie 
and the location of his camp, Fremont, taking 
with him Kit Carson and five or six of his Dela- 
ware Indians, every one of whom in bravery and 
a knowledge of Indian warfare was the peer of 
anv man that ever lived, started on the back 



GKN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 8l 

trail to the relief of Gillespie, whose camp he 
reached in the early twilight. 

After supper the party talked by the campfire 
till a late hour, and then imprudently went to 
sleep without establishing a sentinel. The first 
sleep of the night, which is said to be the sweet- 
est, was of short duration. Carson's quick ear 
caught a thud-Hke sound, which instantly brought 
him to his feet, when he saw the camp alive with 
Indians, and that the sound that awoke him was 
produced by a tomahawk crashing into the brain 
of a brave and trusty Delewarean. 

The Indians immediately raised the war-whoop, 
which was returned by Carson and the remaining 
Delawares. The Klamaths, after being severely 
punished, all sought refuge in flight, except Black 
Eagle, who fought with a spirit of desperation, 
dodging from side to side under cover of night, 
and screaming like a panther to elude the vigi- 
lance of his enemy as to numbers and location, 
and at the same time hurling his shafts with the 
rapidity of thought. 

One of Fremont's men went to the light of the 
fire to examine the lock of his gun, when Carson 

coolly remarked to Fremont: "See that 

fool." 



82 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

Black Eagle finally '"bit the dust," and was 
found to be the same chief who assisted Gillespie 
in crossing the stream two da3^s before. 

Two of the Delawares who mourned the loss of 
their brave comrade, obtained permission of Fre- 
mont to remain in camp awhile after the party 
had set out for Sutter's fort. 

After Fremont was well out of sight of camp 
he halted that he might be overtaken by the men 
whom he had left with Neal the day before, and 
also by the Delawares, who remained concealed 
near the scene of the night attack. 

On hearing a few rifle reports in the direction 
of the camp, the party started back only to meet 
the two Delawares on a brisk pace, each with a 
warm scalp of a Klamath warrior. 

In relating this circumstance, Fremont said it 
was the second instance in his official career in 
the west that he had encamped without the pro- 
tection of a sentinel. On that night, he said, 
just before spreading his blanket he went to a 
meadow near at hand where his mules were graz- 
ing, as was his custom, to see the condition of 
the animals, and especially to see if they were 
quiet and inclined to rest, or if they showed signs 
of uneasiness with their attention frequently ar- 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 83 

rested and attracted in a particular direction for 
mules, he said, were natural and expert detect- 
ives. He left them quietly feeding and returned 
to his camp, and all, being very tired, went to 
sleep without the protection that prudence, at 
such a time and place, would have dictated. 
After punishing the tribe for their behavior, by 
burning their village, they returned to the fort. 
Black Eagle was tall and well-proportioned, and 
classed with the higher grade of California Indi- 
ans. He was strong, athletic, and a fast runner, 
and could run and jump nearly twenty feet. 

SOCIETY. 

At the time of Sutter's advent into the Sacra- 
mento valley, the society in the more settled por- 
tions of the country, where the frequency of 
rancheros and neighbors could be regarded as a 
society, was less formal on points of etiquette 
than New England society is to day, or probably 
was at that time. 

Tiie social pleasures consisted in neighborhood 
visits, on which occasions the visiting party were 
sometimes treated to songs, accompanied by the 
guitar, and sometimes to feats of horsemanship 



84 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

displayed by young^ men who were, undoubtedly, 
the cleverest horseback riders in the world, the 
Cossack and Mameluke not excepted, A cava- 
lier who could not pick a silver dollar from the 
ground, when riding at high speed, was by no 
means accounted an expert equestrian. The 
rider was not so fond of his horse as he was of 
the pleasure he derived from his use; for, in fact, 
a horse was soon worn out and broken down un- 
der his reg^ime. But when one of those noble 
animals survived his usefulness he was turned out 
to grass, like a broken-down politician, with some 
exceptions as to reputation, and another was se- 
lected from the goodly number his owner con- 
trolled to take his place. 

A representative Calilornian of riper years, 
whom the spirit of froHc had deserted for a more 
suitable abode, unlike the ambitious youth, was 
more attached to his horse than to equestrian 
exploits, treating him not only with kind care but 
with caresses of fondness. 

His horse came in for the lion's share of his 
affections, and the residue was divided between 
his dogs and his wife; a custom which time, with 
its endless changes, has not yet consigned to the 
past. 



GEN. JOHN A, SUTTER. 85 

Why these men were such excellent riders will 
be readily understood on a little reflection. The 
most of them were either owners of cattle, for 
which they must care, or were often employed by 
those who were in cattle husbandry. Under no 
circumstances was it safe for a footman to venture 
near a band of cattle, either on a range or in a 
corral. The picture is scarcely overdrawn to say 
when a band of wild cattle attack a footman on a 
plain, where deep ravines, precipitous rocks or 
trees offer him no shelter, they become an enemy 
little less formidable than the same number of 
tigers would be in a Bengal jungle. 

Business pursuits called boys into the saddle 
at an early age and kept them there a great deal 
of the time; and, as experience is the mother of 
skill, they became expert horsemen as a direct 
and natural consequence. It may be well to 
observe that the primitive Californian was organ- 
ized for enduring a vast amount of rest. He 
seldom relished self-created locomotion; it sav- 
ored too much of toil. 

But the chief pleasure in which the women 
participated was found at the dancing party. 
Some of the young women were both attractive 
and beautiful, and as blithe as a skylark, gliding 



86 THK IvIFE AND TIMES OF 

through the dance like a celestial vision, stepping 
the sweet measures with extraordinary adroitness 
as the musician swept them from his guitar or 
mandolin. They were modestly attired, and yet 
so sparingly upholstered as to display an outline 
that Venus might have envied. The complexion 
of the girls of "sweet sixteen," which in a sunny 
clime is so generally inconsonant to beauty, was, 
in some instances, a happy blending of olive and 
rose tints. Their eyes were dark and well orna- 
mented with long black lashes, which formed a 
beautiful contrast with the soft bloom of the 
cheek. The lips were full and pinken, and when 
parted showed a system of pearly teeth set with 
unsurpassed regularity. 

It was a rare treat to witness a spirited conver- 
sation in the Spanish language between two of 
those musically-voiced women. 

Sometimes they rode to the party on a favorite 
pony, and as frequently went on foot, walking 
sometimes a distance of five or six miles, and 
usually with bare feet, carrying in their hands a 
pair of slippers, which they adjusted to their feet 
by the wayside before arriving at the scene of 
festivity. No hose worn. When one of them 
accepted from a cavalier an invitation to attend a 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 87 

party she considered him obHgated to bestow 
upon her so much of his attention as she might 
require (and the reader who has any knowledge 
of womankind is left to estimate that amount) 
during the life of that occasion, and she would 
insist, then and there, that her social rights be 
observed and respected. Her assumed jurisdic- 
tion over the deportment of her beau ceased, 
however, with the passing of the festival, leaving 
him to his own discretion respecting the future. 
If one man stole another's wife and was after- 
ward discovered he was sometimes flogged, pro- 
vided the man whose wife was stolen considered 
himself injured; but if a horse were stolen and 
the thief was apprehended he died with his boots 
on; the penalty attached by law to horse stealing 
being death; to wife stealing, flogging. 



THE BEAR FLAG REVOLUTION. 

The word war, when applied to nations, strikes 
the ear with unsubdued harshness. It is but a 
conventional term, used to awaken ideas of 
desolation, calamity and death; of feeding mother 
earth on the choicest globules of patriotic blood. 



88 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and of feasting- wolves and vultures on human 
flesh. 

The Bear Flag war was rather a humane war 
in which the possible good it may have induced 
is not counterpoised by the sorrow and misery it 
entailed. 

Reserving a more complete history of this war 
for the carefully prepared work, entitled "The 
Life and Times of Gen. John A. Sutter" (illus- 
trated), complete in one volume, by the author of 
this work, and which will soon be given to the 
public, I will notice, with much brevity, some of 
the issues involved, actions taken, and points 
scored in the so-called Bear Flag revolution, 

Where hero's brave marched too and fro, 
But nowhere did the crimson flow. 

Pico and Castro were hostile to the American 
immigrants, and neglected no opportunity to so 
expresss themselves. 

The Indians were so troublesome that Mexico 
had offered lands to any foreigner who would 
settle upon them and naturalize to her govern- 
ment. These lands they had refused to grant, 
according to promise. Instead of a republican 
government, which had been promised them, 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 89 

they were imposed upon by arbitrary and 
unprincipled rulers, who sought their appoint- 
ment through a desire for aggrandizement and 
plunder. 

Pio Pico, in an address to the Junta, declared 
that these self-invited guests, with their great 
prairie schooners, had scaled the Sierras and were 
occupying the most fertile valley lands in the 
State. With their long guns they would kill an 
antelope at almost any distance, and that it was 
doubtful whether California, at that time, was 
able to drive them back over the mountains 
whence they came. He said it was hard to tell 
what they would undertake next, but whatever it 
might be, they would be likely to succeed. 

There were a great many foreigners in Cali- 
fornia, but the Americans outnumbered all the 
rest, and upon them, the displeasure of the 
dominant power was brought to bear. 

Castro, whose adroitness was best displayed in 
his efforts to keep out of danger, declared, by 
proclamation, that all foreigners must leave Cali- 
fornia within forty days, or their property would 
be confiscated and they would be put to death. 

As he was commander-in-chief of the army in 
California, this proclamation could not pass 



90 THE I<IFE AND TIMES OF 

unnoticed. The Americans, being; recognized 
as foreigners, began to look about them, and to 
inquire whether Castro was laboring under a 
mistake. 

A train of overland immigrants was expected 
soon to reach Carson Valley, en route for Califor- 
nia. The valorous Castro conceived a plan to 
intercept this train, kill all the live stock, destroy 
the goods and send the party back across the 
plains. 

Preparations were commenced for carrying this 
work of barbarism into effect. The provincial 
government had a band of horses pasturing near 
San Rafael. Castro sent a lieutenant and some 
privates to gather them up and bring them to 
San Jos , to be used as cavalry in the expedition 
against the immigrant train referred to. 

The ofticer and his men crossed the Sacra- 
mento river with the horses, at Knight's Landing 
and were overtaken on the following evening by 
a party of Americans, who captured the horses, 
leaving one for the lieutenant and one for each of 
his men, and after instructing the officer to tell 
Castro if he wanted the horses to come and get 
them, ,they returned, with their prize, to the 
settlement. 



GKN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 9I 

"Tlie pear was ripe." On the I4tli clay of 
June, 1846, a parly of Americans, mostly from 
Napa valley, without a leader, gathered and 
took Sonoma, a fortified town on the north side 
of San Francisco bay. 

This place was occupied by Mexican citizens, 
and was the residence of General Vallejo, who 
was commandant-general of the northern district 
of California; his brother, Don Salvador Vallejo, 
who was captain in the Mexican service. Colonel 
Victor Prudeshon and Jacob P. Leese (an Ameri- 
can). 

These officers were surprised in bed at break 
of day, and were transported as prisoners of war, 
or hostages, to Fremont's camp, where they were 
kept a few daj^s and then removed to Sutter's 
fort, where they were strictly guarded by several 
Americans, who were detailed for that purpose, 
and one Mr. Kern, a private in Fremont's com- 
mand, was made a captain of the guard. The 
prisoners were kept at this place until released 
on parol. 

Some of the Americans, who were members of 
the guard, and who were unacquainted with the 
kind feeling General Vallejo entertained for them, 
censured Sutter for the courtesy with which he 



92 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

treated the prisoners, and even went so far as to 
threaten his hfe if he did not desist. Sutter in- 
formed them that the fort was his own private 
property, and that whoever remained in it, while 
it was subject to his control, should suffer no 
abuse. He informed the guard that General 
Vallejo and his brother officers thought well of 
them, and respected the American flag. He told 
them, in conclusion, if it were their intention to 
treat tlie prisoners any way but kindly, they must 
delay doing so until they were removed from the 
fort. 

I have said that the party to whom the garri- 
son at Sonoma surrendered acted without a 
leader. Rumors are, or have been, current that 
Ezekiel Merritt, Esq., acted, at some stage of the 
proceedings, either before or after the surrender 
of Sonoma, as captain of the company. Cer- 
tainly he could have been in command but a 
short time, and there is a well founded doubt 
about his having acted in that capacity at any 
time. The statement is well authenticated that 
Merritt headed the party on their ride to Sonoma; 
and it is quite as evident that on reaching the 
place his authority over the men, whatever it was, 
ceased by agreement or by common consent. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 93 

Dr. Semple, who was duly appointed a mem- 
ber of a committee to gather material for a history 
of the Bear Flag revolution, published a series 
of articles on this subject, the first of which ap- 
peared in his paper two months after the flag was 
raised and the movement inaugurated. He was 
an active participant, and was in a position to 
know as much about the movement as any one. 
I think much importance should attach to his 
statement. He says; "On the 14th day of June, 
1846, a party of Americans, without a leader, 
gathered and took possession of the fortified town 
of Sonoma," etc. But Dr. Semple says Merritt 
was a member of the Bear Flag party. 

General Vallejo's wife, an amiable and accom- 
plished lady, who was present when her husband 
was commanded to surrender, said to the Amer- 
icans, "To whom are we to surrender?" In after 
years she frequently related the circumstances, 
and amused herself with the idea that an armed 
force undertook so grave a task without a leader. 

Merritt, the reputed captain, was an old moun- 
taineer, bear hunter and trapper. He lived with 
a squaw, and attired like a Rocky Mountain 
chief, wearing buckskin breeches heavily fringed 
along the wide seam on the outer side of the legs. 



94 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 

He was addicted to a generous use of ardent 
spirits and navy plug tobacco. He did but little 
spitting, but either swallowed the tobacco juice 
or let it flow at random adown his chin. In his 
own estimation he was as brave as "Captain 
Kidd" was bold. 

He was a skillful bear trapper, and, according 
to his own report, he had slaughtered Indians 
enough to people an extensive burying ground. 
Every time he killed one he cut a notch in his 
tomahawk handle, which was notched, of course, 
from one end to the other. As he could neither 
read nor write, this was his only method of mak- 
ing a memorandum. It is doubtful whether he 
could have even counted the notches in his toma- 
hawk handle. 

When the revolutionary party captured this 
"Ticonderoga" they surrounded the fort and 
sent some men with an interpreter (Spanish being 
spoken) into the commander's apartments to 
demand the surrender. Vallejo assured them he 
was willing to make common cause with them 
and head the forces at his command against the 
enemies of the country. 

His generosity, for which he was distinguished, 
becoming excited, he brought forward some 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 95 

choice wines, which the party, after a night's 
ride, sampled with a greed that controlled their 
judgment. 

After remaining in their saddles two or more 
hours guarding the premises, during which time 
they had received no tidings from the men who 
entered the house, one of the party suggested 
that they elect a captain and let him enter and 
explore the situation within and in due time 
report to them. The man was accordingly 
elected and sent in. 

The company in the house was enjoying a high 
jinks. Merritt was sitting with his head down and 
was totally indifferent in regard to all passing 
events, to say nothing of future prospects, and 
the delegated interpreter was too "mellow" to 
discharge his official duty. 

After waiting an hour for the return of the 
captain, the party elected another man and sent 
him in with the same instructions they had given 
the other, saying to him: " Now, you go in that 

house, and by you come out again." The 

author does not vouch for the truth of the fore- 
going story. 

The Bear party left a garrison of 40 at Sonoma, 
where they found nine pieces of artillery and 250 



96 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

Stand of arms. The prisoners, as I have said, 
were sent under an escort to Captain Fremont's 
headquarters. After they had ridden a few hours, 
one of the Americans, recog^nizing Salvador Val- 
lejo.as the man who had once treated him to an 
exhibition of brutahty, rode up to him and in a 
determined voice said to him: "When I was in 
your power, sir, you struck me with your sword; 
now you are in my power and I will not strike 
you." 

The first night after leaving Sonoma the party 
having the prisoners in charge encamped and 
went to sleep without being sentineled. 

After Morpheus had folded them in his gentle 
embrace the sleepers were approached by a band 
of desperadoes, under the leadership of Juan de 
Padilla, an outlaw, who cautiously crept to where 
they lay, and informed General Vallejo that he 
had a strong force of well armed rancheros who 
could surprise and kill I he Americans before they 
could fly to arms. 

Vallejo, outranking Padilla, instructed him to 
banish from his mind so foul a plot, which, if car- 
ried into execution, would imperil the lives of 
their families and strengthen the cause of the for- 
eigners. He told Padilla he should go with his 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 97 

captors, and hoped for good treatment. Valor 
and magnanimity, he said, go hand in hand, and 
no people who are as brave as the Americans are 
can fail to be generous. 

The prompt action of the patriots, which event- 
uated in the capture of Sonoma, is entitled to the 
commendation of humane, loyal and brave men. 
Their determination to protect themselves, their 
homes and their friends against unprovoked and 
brutal violence was cool in its inception, mild in 
its execution and beneficent in its tendency. A 
plan had been matured by the enemy to visit an 
immigrant train with robbery, hardship and dis- 
tress. Had the Americans acted with indifference 
or inerdy pending this plan to pillage a helpless 
train of their countrymen, their friends and their 
kindred, they would have sullied the record of 
American courage and patriotism. Besides this 
threat, those in position to grant passports to 
those wishing to travel through the province had 
refused to do so. The commander-in-chief, as 
we have noticed, had ordered every foreigner out 
of the country, under pain of death should the 
order be disregarded. These insults the Ameri- 
cans were neither prepared nor disposed to 
endure. 



98 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

They had been allured to California by the 
promise of land and the promise of protection. 
The land had been withheld, and instead of being 
protected the government was directing its arms 
against them. They, as well as all other Califor- 
nians by adoption, had grown tired of such injus- 
tice. This fact appeared evident from the unset- 
tled state of affairs which had existed more than 
twenty years prior to the Bear Flag war. 

While the spirit of revolution was known to be 
spreading throughout the province, many were 
apprehensive of results prejudicial to the interest 
of foreigners from premature and indiscreet action. 
The ignorant and narrow-minded class of native 
Californians were jealous of the Americans, who, 
they claimed, were steadily encroaching upon 
their domain, and who, through habits of push 
and economy, were increasing their riches. 

Immediately after the fall of Sonoma the Bear 
party proceeded to organize an independent gov- 
ernment. William B. Ide was elected governor 
and commander-in-chief of the independent 
forces, and John H. Nash was elected chief jus- 
tice. 

As all civilized nations have a flag and a motto, 
this embryonic republic must assume the digni- 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 99 

ties of sovereignty and add her molto to the le- 
pubHc of banners. 

Dr. Semple, to whom I have referred on an- 
other page, and who was present when the flag 
was made, says: "A flag was made of a piece of 
white cotton cloth, with one red stripe on the bot- 
tom, and on the white a grizzly bear with a single 
star in front of him. It was painted, or rather 
stained, with lampblack and pokeberries. Along 
the top was written Republic o( California." 

It is quite probable that William Todd, a 
young man who was a kin to the wife of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, assisted by old Peter Storm, painted 
the bear flag. There are as many conflicting re- 
ports respecting this flag, as to how and by whom 
it was made, as there are about the color of a cha- 
meleon. Each of these reports seems to be well 
authenticated and highly creditable. They can- 
not, all of them, be true. 

The idea of having a grizzly bear for a motto 
was suggested by Captain Ford. Most of the 
party being hunters, the suggestion was thought 
to be a good one and the bear was adopted. The 
painting, viewed from an artistic standpoint, was 
not a success, as those who saw it, and not know- 



lOO THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

ing what it was intended to represent, supposed 
it to be a wild boar. 

The "Giotto" who painted the bear flag-, and 
whom without doubt was young Todd, is entitled 
to lasting credit, poor as the execution may have 
been. It was an impromptu performance to meet 
the demand of a real or supposed necessity. The 
artist did not know how long the new banner 
would wave in heaven. The revolution might be 
a success or it might be a failure. The young 
painter might long enjoy the empire his valor 
helped to create, or he might die the next day as 
a rebel, ignominously and on the scaffold. Time 
for deliberation was not at his disposal. He could 
not, like Raphael, repair to his studio and there, 
undisturbed by contending influences, with his 
mind as calm as a summer's sea, and with the 
choicest paints and brushes at his command, out- 
line and re-outline, sketch and re-sketch, limn 
and re-limn, and blend and re- blend for days, 
weeks, and months before offering for public in- 
spection the offspring of his imagination. 

In due time Governor Ide issued a proclama- 
tion and arranged articles of agreement and treaty 
stipulations. He promised protection to women 
and children, and to all who would not take up 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. lOI 

arms against the revolutionists. This address 
had a far-reaching and a most salutary effect. 

Meanwhile, Castro sent out a proclamation 
calling on all good Californians to unite, and in 
one bold effort fall on and kill the bears of 
Sonoma, and then return and kill the whelps 
afterwards. This murderous proclamation aided 
greatly in increasing the garrison. 

Incensed by the barbarous threat of Castro, 
the foreigners who had hitherto been neutral or 
conservative took on bolder conditions, and 
resolved to stand by the Americans, and on the 
19th of June, the garrison of Sonoma was 
reinforced. 

At that time California was, what it has been 
ever since, the general dumping ground of all 
nations. Whatever may have brought the 
foreigners to the country, they were brave men 
and were loyal to the home of their adoption. 
By the 4th of July the patriots had taken Yerba 
Buena (San Francisco), spiked the cannon there, 
and held all of California north and east of San 
Juan river. 

At the solicitation of the revolutionists, Fre- 
mont took command of them on the 5th day of 
July, 1846, which virtually terminated the Bear 



I02 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Flag revolution by merging it into the character 
of a national war, congress having declared war 
against Mexico May 13th, just one month and 
one day before the fall of Sonoma. 

California was settled and conquered by 
American immigrants, and the enterprise was fol- 
lowed up by the American government. 

On the nth day of July, 1846, General Sutter 
raised the American flag over his fort. Under 
this flag, men are transformed into heroes. 

How impressive must have been the scene 
when, on that beautiful morning, the aromatic 
breath of heaven, which ever touches the west- 
ern shore in this latitude with unprecedented 
loveliness, kissed the glorious flag of our country; 
when, for the first time, the Swiss humanitarian, 
in whose soul the fires of patriotism were ever 
aglow, gave the starry emblem of freedom to the 
breeze that fanned the citadel of New Helvetia. 

The subsequent military operations in Cali- 
fornia, directing to the treaty of Guadaloupe 
Hidalgo, are so well known, and our space in 
this volume is so limited, no allusion can be 
made to them here. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. IO3 

THE MURDER OF COWEY AND FOWLER. 

At the beginning- of the Bear Flag revolution, 
two young men, Thomas Cowey and George 
Fowler, who lived in the neighborhood of So- 
noma, started to go to Bodega. When on their 
way they were discovered by a small party of 
Californians, under command of one Padilla, 
taken prisoners, kept a day and a half, and then 
they were tied to a tree and cut to pieces in the 
most brutal manner. 

A Californian, known as Three- Fingered Jack, 
a noted outlaw, who was afterwards captured, 
gave the following account of the horrible scene: 
The party, after keeping the prisoners a day or 
two, tied them to trees, then stoned them. One 
of them had his jaw broken. A riata (rope) was 
made fast to the broken bone and the jaw dragged 
out. They were then cut up, a small piece at a 
time, and the pieces thrown at them or crammed 
in their throats, and they were eventually dis- 
patched by cutting out their bowels. 

The tragedy of Cowey and Fowler shows the 
first and almost the only bloodshed in the Bear 
Flag revolution. The shedding of this did not 
occur in battle, nor even in a skirmish sanctioned 



I04 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

by color of war, but was a cold-blooded murder, 
committed under the assumed license of a side 
show. 

The following is a list of the members of the 
Bear Flag party, as furnished by Dr. Semple: 
Sacramento Valley, Ezekiel Merritt, Robert 
Semple, William Fallon, William B. Ide, Henry 
L. Ford, Granville P. Smith, Samuel Neal, Wil- 
liam Potter, Samuel Gibson, W. M. Scott, James 
Gibbs, Horace Sanders, Peter Storm; Napa, 
Samuel Kelsey, Benjamin Kelsey, John Grigsby, 
David Hudson, William Hargrave, Harrison 
Pierce, William Porterfield, Patrick McChristian, 
Silas Barrett, C. C. Griffith, William L. Todd, 
Nathan Coombs, Lucien Maxwell; Sonoma, 
Franklin Bidwell, Thomas Cowey, George Fow- 
ler, William B. Elliott, Benjamin Duel), John 
Sears, "Old Red." Others were connected with 
the movement, but it cannot be ascertained if 
they were present at the capture of Sonoma. 



GKN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I05 

THE CARNIVAL OF GOLD. 

When, by incident, the book of fate was sud- 
denly opened at a page that dazzled with fairy 
promises, the admiration of mankind, wild, novel 
and romantic were the scenes in California society 
that followed. Stories of extracting- the precious 
metal at Coloma were well rounded out in their pro- 
portions before they left the mining^ camp, and, as 
they fell on good ground, they frequently pro- 
duced five hundredfold. Strange as it may appear, 
the stories of the gold find of '48 lost neither 
flavor nor matter in the rapid and endless trans- 
fer from man to man all over the world. Good 
as the stories were, no one took toll of them, 
syndics, trustees and corporation chairmen being 
less plentiful than they are now. Each tale 
received from its vendor the fertilizing support of 
his genius until it grew like Jonah's gourd. A 
grain of gold taken from the mine became a 
pennyweight at Panama, an ounce in New York 
and Boston, and a pound nugget at London. 
Companies in New York and Liverpool owning 
steamships lost little time in establishing trans- 
portation lines by both Panama and Cape Horn 
routes to the great gold fields of the Sierras. 



to6 THE I.IEE ANi) I^IMES of 

These navigation companies liad scraps of iron 
and copper of various shapes and sizes, some 
being as large as a man could lift, washed in imi- 
tation of gold, and labeled "From California." 
These nuggets of base metal were artfully ar- 
ranged in windows and showcases to catch the 
passer's eye. They caught it. Excitement rose 
to a fever heat, the traveling masses in search of 
the "aurum's nest" were willing to take some 
chances. They evidently took many. 

Within six months from the time gold was dis- 
covered, at Sutter's mill, a great carnival was 
established, outrunning in its magnitude the 
liveliest imagination and the wildest deductions of 
fancy. The tale was told and the influence was 
felt wherever on the planet civilization claimed 
a home. This was at a time, too, when tele- 
graphy was in its infancy. The rage so exciting, 
so contagious and so far reaching, gave rise to a 
voluntary commotion, which, in the extent of its 
range, shadows the record of all times. The 
great commercial thoroughfares of the world 
were soon thronged with the curious, the 
venturesome and the determined. Upon the 
furrowed bosom of the dark ocean were wafted 
toward an uncertain destiny souls who had 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I07 

hiiherto recoiled at the thought of hazarding the 
perils of the deep. Plains unconquered, and 
until now unknown, were peopled by a moving 
mass of fortune seekers, all headed for the land o 
gold. All nations were soon represented in Cali- 
fornia. A babel of confusion ensued. Tented 
hamlets, villages and cities sprang up as if waved 
into existence by a fairy's wand. The necessities 
of life were much wanting. Flour, eighty dollars 
per hundred; beans, seventy-five dollars per 
hundred; potatoes, fifty dollars per hundred, and 
other domestic articles correspondingly scarce 
and expensive; whisky, especially, soared up 
like the price of fuel in mid-winter. 

Thousands of men, unhoused and untented, 
rolled themselves in blankets, took shelter 
under a star and lay down to dream of home and 
loved ones and the probable treasures in store for 
-them in the land of strangers. The long, weary, 
and uncertain transit of the "post" added gloom 
to distance and fanned the fiame of anxiety. The 
hope of restoring to a healthy condition a dis- 
ordered finance battled bravely with the ever 
lurking forces of despondency. Some men were 
successful to the fullest expectation. Others, 
less favorably starred, and being sore over mis- 



io8 



THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 




GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. IO9 

fortune, pined for the loved and dear ones at 
home, finally sank beneath a load of caie and 
sorrow, and now sleep, in unknown graves all 
over the gold-bearing region of the Pacific shore. 

California was peopled by no select or special 
class or classes of society. Every grade of 
human kind, from the learned, the wise and the 
humane down through each and every inter- 
mediate caste to the contemptible scum of God's 
creation, was found here. Desperate characters, 
unhung in the land of their birth, sought to lose 
their identity amidst this commingling of nation- 
alities. 

A man was nowhere safe, except he were cau- 
tious and on his guard. But the better classes of 
men came to the front, as circumstances induced 
improved conditions in society from time to time, 
and scoundrels of both high and low grade were 
summarily dealt with. It became fashionable for 
such men to die with their boots on, erect and 
without touching bottom. Rather an awkward 
manner of going out. As men die but once, 
this style cannot be safely attributed to force of 
habit. The style was adopted to gratify the de- 
sire of "Judge Lynch." 

Wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts were 



no THE WFE AND TIMES OF 

left at home; the journey being too long, 
fatiguing and hazardous, and the comforts and 
sunshine of life at the journey's end too uncer- 
tain to encourage the thought of embarking- 
them in the enterprise. As a consequence, a 
dearth of women in California prevailed. 

In 1850, a fair looking, well upholstered young 
woman, who was an average performer on an 
organ, piano, or guitar, could command one 
hundred dollars per month, just to stop at a 
hotel to draw custom. 

Some years ago I was informed by a woman 
that she had refused the above offer. She said, 
however, that she was acquainted with the land- 
lord and his family, and that she visited the family 
often, staying weeks at a time. Freight teamsters 
put up early at the hotel, while she was there, 
and started out late, sometimes staying till their 
bill was one hundred dollars, which was paid in 
gold dust. 

The woman, too, who related this to me is as 
innocent of beauty as an e^g is of moss. Women 
were at a premium, and a man would walk five 
miles, on crutches, just to hear a baby cry. To- 
day he will walk twice that distance, if necessary, 
to get out of hearing; and a man unless he owes 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. Ill 

1 is neighbor a grudge will not board a musician 
a^ any price. 

Ten dollars, or an ounce of gold dust per day, 
\;fas the average wages for roustabout labor. An 
Italian stevedore could command almost any 
price he might ask to load and unload a vessel. 
That day is past. Water seeks its level. Prices 
have gradually settled down to a normal condi- 
tion. The gold fever has been neutralized by 
experience, hardship, and disappointment. The 
jud2:e does not nowadays go to the room where 
his jury have retired to arrange a verdict and say: 
"Gentlemen, I do not wish to hurry you, but I 
must have this room cleared by one o'clock so 
the sheriff can hang this man." The "hounds" 
have been vanquished, and vigilance committees 
in general have ceased to be a necessity. Fancy 
has given way to fact, and men have long since 
settled down to peaceful industries, encouraged 
by honest gains and gradual prosperity. 

The varied constituents forming the mass of 
human beings who, by incident, precipitated to 
the gold fields had a large preponderance of well- 
principled and law-abiding men. 

If a crime were committed the perpetrator was 
apprehended and speedily brought to trial. A 



112 THE LIFK AND TIMES OF 

judge or jury was selected on the spot, if a suffi- 
cient number were present, and from the verdict 
rendered there was no appeal. When the offense 
was not an aggravated one the miscreant was 
sometimes sentenced to get out of camp never to 
return. He "got." There prevailed among the 
miners a friendship and hospitality such as have 
been seldom met with elsewhere. Men would sit 
by the evening fire of a neighbor and relate the 
experiences of the day, and not infrequently allude 
to their own ingleside in their far away home. 

The cabin and its "grub" (victuals) were free, 
and always at a weary man's disposal. It was 
customary and strictly allowable for a hungry 
man, when from home, to call at a cabin for cheer, 
and, if the proprietor were absent, to enter and 
help himself to such as he found. If the larder 
were depleted, he cooked and prepared such a 
meal as circumstances would allow, ate and 
passed on. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 113 

FREIGHTING. 

When Marshall picked the first gold nugget 
from the tail-race of Sutter's mill Northern Cali- 
fornia was almost in a state of nature. There 
were a few settlements, but they were small and, 
like angel's visits, far between. A man could 
ride all day on horseback over as grand a coun- 
try as the sun has ever warmed or a garden 
beautified and not see a civilized man. 

Before the close of the memorable '49 the ter- 
ritory was ready to come into the Union. Ham- 
lets began to dot the great basins of the San 
Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, and the fertile 
valleys were checked with grain fields. 

Freighting had grown to colossal proportions, 
Sacramento being the commercial center. On 
the first day of September, '49, which was only one 
year and six months subsequent to the gold dis- 
covery, the following vessels were lying at Sacra- 
mento: Barques — Joven, Praxatiles, Harriet 
Newell, Whiton, Eliza, Elvira, Wm. Jay, Isabel, 
and Croton. Brigs — John Ender, Salito, Jackin, 
Viola, Sterling, North Star, Charlotte, Emily, 
Bourne, Almina, Cordelia, and George Emery. 



114 



THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 




GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. II5 

Schooners — Odd Fellow, Lola, Gazelle, Gen. 
Lane, Pomona, Anthem, and Catherine. 

Througli the courtesy of Judge J. H, McKune, 
an honored member of the Sacramento bar. and 
a member also of the Society of Pioneers of 
Sacramento, the author is enabled to give the 
foregoing list. 

Soon after the discovery of the Comstock lode, 
in Nevada, and before the transcontinental rail- 
way was intersected by a road through Carson 
valley, the carting became immense. Five hun- 
dred teams, heavily loaded with quartz mill 
appliances and all kinds of mining implements 
and general supplies, left Sacramento daily. As 
the word "team" conveys to a New England 
reader but a vague idea of a freight team in Cali- 
fornia in Sutter's time, it may be well to give a 
general description of one here. An average 
team used in freighting early in the fifties con- 
sisted of twelve animals; sometimes horses, but 
more frequently mules. The leaders wore, in an 
overhanging arch, which was secured to the 
hames, a collection of bells, most beautiful in 
appearance and exquisitely chimed. These bells 
were not used so much for the music they dis- 
coursed as they were for their tendency to avert 



Il6 THE I.IFE; AND TIMKS OF 

the difficulties to which the unexpected near ap- 
proach of other teams might give rise. 

The driver rode one of the wheel horses, which 
was saddled for his convenience, drove with a 
jerk line, and manipulated the brake by means 
of a strong leathern strap, one end of which was 
attached to the brake lever and the other end so 
secured to the hames of his liorse that he could 
command it at pleasure. 

The train was usually made up of the team 
and two wagons. Wagon No. 2 was attached to 
the rear of Wagon No. i by means of a short 
pole made for that purpose. Wagon No. i had 
a capacity to carry 20,000 pounds anywhere over 
a good road. No. 2 had a less capacity. A 
man standing in one of these wagons found the 
box to be nearly as high as his head. A rock as 
large as a goose's egg was granulated under one 
of these wheels on a bedrock road. 

When seen on a light down grade, with one 
arm reaching ahead at full length in the act of 
controlling the leaders with the jerk line, and the 
other extending far to the rear with his hand 
"froze" to the brake strap, and reeling fore and 
aft as he issued upon the sunburnt air a volume 
of anathemc^s, and with his animals wading and 



GKN. JOHN A. vSUTTER. II7 

his wagons rolling through four or five inches of 
El Dorado's best dust, 1 repeat, when seen un- 
der such circumstances, an observer not accus- 
tomed to the spectacle might have thought the 
driver was a mysterious being, on a mysterious 
mission to a mysterious place — without reference 
to his Satanic majesty or the infernal regions. 
After the team was hitched up in the morning 
it was not fed until the day's work was done. 

The boxes in which merchandise was shipped 
from distant lands to Sacramento were carefully 
taken to pieces, stocked up and called a lumber 
yard. This lumber sold at the rate of one hun- 
dred dollars per thousand, with nails and knot- 
holes thrown in. 

In freighting to and over the mountains these 
great teams and ponderous wagons could visit 
only the way stations and terminal points of the 
main thoroughfare. The trip was made practical 
by a system of natural ridges and facilitated by 
some artificial grading. 

To the right and left of the main road were 
trails leading down the deep canon side to the 
camps of placer miners by the stream below. 
Such camps were not located with a view to con- 
venience. Gold is not like army bacon; it will 



Il8 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

not come at your call. Whoever takes it from 
its bed must go where it hes. For supplying 
camps tlnis situated a "miner's brig" (pack 
animal) is very useful. For this business a mule 
is unsurpassed, being strong, sure-footed and 
patient. 

A miner once told me when he was mining in 
the foothills of the Sierras in '49, he hired a horse 
and pack saddle and went to Sacramento after 
"grub." He had never stowed a cargo on a 
"miner's brig," and to make his venture a suc- 
cess he gave an expert a dollar and seventy- five 
cents to superintend the loading. Not being able 
to reach home the first day with his supplies, he 
encamped at night on the trail. Fearing he 
might not be able to reload in the morning, he 
left the load on the horse all night and reached 
home the following day. 

A gentleman in Humboldt county owned a 
large sheep ranch, to which a wagon road had not 
been constructed. The only means of getting a 
grand square piano to his house without great 
expense was by packing it on mules, which he 
did. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. II9 

BULL FIGHTS. 

In 1850 an amphitheater, with an arena one 
hundred feet in diameter, was built in Sacramento 
for the purpose of entertaining^ spectators with 
gladiatorial contests. A man sometimes entered 
the arena to contend with a Spanish bull; but, as 
on Wall street, in New York city, the principal 
contests were between the "bulls and the bears." 
A donkey sometimes put in an appearance to 
have his mettle tested. This brute, notwithstand- 
ing his seeming stupidity, fights a desperate bat- 
tle, being able to match the bear in an even 
contest. One donkey of medium size entered 
this arena on several occasions to measure 
prowess with a bear. He came off victorious 
every time, leaving his antagonist dead upon the 
field. 

The manager of those entertainments kept 
mounted vaqueros in attendance to save the life 
of a vanquished foe, and to avert any calamity to 
which an accident or unexpected occurrence 
might tend. 

A Spanish bull being championed against a 
bear once entered the arena to dispute the bear's 
title to the championship, when a portion of the 



I20 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

wall between the pit and the arena gave way, 
exposing the audience to the mercy of the infuri- 
ated animals. 

Within an interval of ten seconds from this 
occurrence three vaqueros formed a triangle in 
the arena, and with their lariats had the bull pin- 
ioned in the center. But these barbarous exhibi- 
tions, which, like cock-fights, under Spanish 
rule, were looked upon as a high order of enter- 
tainment, early waned under the influx of Ameri- 
cans. 

There was a rough-and-ready air about the 
forty-niners and other early mimigrants in Califor- 
nia, and society at that time did not always display 
the refinement common to a New England draw- 
ing room, but there was at all times a strong 
undercurrent of grand and noble manhood, and 
a golden cord — a silken string permeated the 
breast that was inclosed in a rough exterior, and 
from this string tones of sympathy were easily 
swept. When an unfortunate and hungry stran- 
ger entered a camp some one would accost him 

thusly: "G d it, come in and stuff your 

shirt. How much money do ye want?" How 
about the society with which I have contrasted 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 121 

this? God bless you, brother; I wish it were in 
my power to assist you. 

But I must finish the bull tight. This enter- 
prise was a failure financially in Sacramento. 
After experimenting about eighteen months the 
edifice was sold under an execution issued in 
favor of Mr. Drew, the mechanic who built it, 
and was bid off and torn down by him, piled on 
the ground where it stood, was washed away by 
a flood, carried to the foot of L street, where it 
was fished from the flood by Mr. Drew, who sold 
it as second-hand lumber for the low price of 
seventy- five dollars per thousand feet. 

GENERAL SUTTER's LOSSES. 

Omitting many of the lesser wrongs Sutter 
sustained, I shall endeavor to notice with much 
brevity some of the greater calamities which 
shadowed the pathway of his declining years. 

Some State in the Union, Missouri, I believe, 
had the good fortune to vomit five free-booters, 
who landed in California and domiciled near 
Marysville in the winter of '49-50, and who, 
armed with rifles and equipped with a good boat, 
some helpers and a butcher's outfit, carried on an 



122 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

extensive business in the slaughtering of animals 
and the selling of meats, their principal market 
being Sacramento city. In the spring they had 
a net dividend of $60,000, and every animal 
slaughtered was the property of General Sutter. 

While this work was going on the Sheriff and 
his posse went to arrest the offenders; but as 
their rendezvous was on an island, and they were 
desperate men and all well armed, the officer, 
believing that to encounter them would be fatal 
to him or some of his men, with little promise of 
success, very prudently withdrew from the field 
and abandoned the undertaking. 

One hundred horses and two thousand dollars' 
worth of swine were stolen from him during the 
same winter. The horses were driven to Oregon 
and the swine slaughtered and sold in the mar- 
ket. 

Lawless and unprincipled men made appro- 
priations of his property as if by civil and divine 
right. 

This brings us to the discussion of the Sutter 
land case, which is so little understood by the 
public generally, and which terminated in the 
financial ruin of the great pioneer. Only a few 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 1 23 

of the prominent leatures of the case can be pre- 
sented here. 

In harnion}' witli the Mexican government, the 
provincial governors granted, from time to time, 
larg-e tracts of land to such foreigners as might 
desire them, and who, in turn, as a considera- 
tion, agreed to naturalize to the Mexican govern- 
ment and settle upon the land so granted and 
improve it, which was all the land was worth in 
the unoccupied districts where it could be so 
obtained. 

The soil was excellent and the climate desir- 
able, but these grants at the time Sutter reached 
California must be obtained to lands remote from 
commercial points and in sections of the country 
that were infested by warlike, thieving and treach- 
erous tribes of Indians. These lands were not 
measured by the acre, but by the square league, 
about ten of them being an average grant. Nor 
were the boundaries as well established as they 
are where more importance attaches to the own- 
ership of th^ land. 

But the discovery of gold at Coloma and the 
pouring in of an interminable stream of immi- 
grants immediately changed the valuation of land 
in California from nominal to real and intrinsic. 



124 'I^HE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

Large and numerous were the tracts claimed 
under color of Mexican grants. 

In 1 85 1 congress created a board of commis- 
sioners, whose duty it was to inquire into the 
validity of the grants in New Mexico and Cali- 
fornia and to adjust disputed claims. 

If a grant was conferred by Mexico prior to 
the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, and such 
grant was in keeping with the laws of that 
government, such title should be respected by 
the United States thereafter. Puffendorf, lib. 8, 
ch. 6. — "The conqueror acquires over those 
whom he subdues a despotic power with respect 
to their lives, but not with respect to their 
possessions." 

Vattel. — "The conqueror lays hands upon the 
possessions of the state, on what belongs to the 
public, while private persons are permitted to re- 
tain theirs. To them the result is, they only 
change masters." 

United States Supreme Court. — "It is a prin- 
ciple of the common law, which has been recog- 
nized as well in this as in other courts, that the 
division of an empire works no forfeiture of 
previously vested rights of property, and this 
maxim is generally consonant with the common 



i 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 125 

sense of mankind, and the maxims ot eternal jus- 
tice." — (5 Wharton— Chief Justice Marshall). 

If a grant were issued by Mexico and the 
record shows such transaction to be according to 
the law governing such cases, it is a question 
whether any tribunal on earth could annul that 
contract so long as the parties to it complied 
with its stipulations. 

But the difficulties involved in these land cases 
were not confined to questions respecting the 
legality of original grants. Some of the claim- 
ants held possession as the last grantor in a claim 
of successors. Cases of this kind evidently 
extended the chances for fraud and multiplied 
the difficulties of adjudication. Whether the 
claimants were more corrupt than the commis- 
sioners the public is left to determine. 

The board of commissioners constituted a 
court of inquiry, with full power to summon 
whomsoever it would and the power to enforce 
attendance. To this august body claims were 
presented for adjudication; the business being- 
transacted in a language of which many of the 
claimants knew not the first rudiments, an 
interpreter was employed. They (the claimants), 



126 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

naturally enough, conceived the idea that the 
field was open to bribery and swindle. 

The connnissioners are unknown to me. It is 
but little venture to assume that they were men 
with men's frailties. Claimants who had all con- 
fidence in the validity of their claim under Mexi- 
can rule entertained doubt as to the issue under 
the changed condition. 

When Louisiana was purchased by the United 
States portions of her land had been granted to 
private individuals in a manner very similar to 
the granting of these lands under consideration; 
and commissioners were appointed to inquire into 
said grants. Some of those claims, to the dis- 
grace of our government, were in litigation more 
than forty years, and until the honest claimant 
had slumbered for years in the grave. The Cali- 
fornia claimants anticipated similar results from 
an effort of investigation. They felt that they 
were a conquered people, and must go before a 
board created by their conquerors who, in a 
tongue unkown to them, would investigate at con- 
venience and report at leisure. 

These conclusions were not the work of imag- 
ination. The light of the past shines over the 
present. Some of these land cases ran through 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 1 27 

ten or twelve years at an expense of $150,000 
and upwards, and taking from the owner in the 
end the accumulations of a lifetime. 

Sutter's grants were among the claims whose 
validity was questioned, and consequently were 
presented, in 1852, to the board of commission- 
ers for adjustment. By this time the pretended 
settlers had preempted all of his available land, 
and destroyed nearly all of his personal property. 
The commissioners found his land grants to be 
perfect ; not a flaw nor a defect was found in either 
of them, and the board confirmed them under 
the provisions of the treaty of Guadaloupe 
Hidalgo. The squatters then appealed to the 
United States District Court for the northern dis- 
trict of California, when the decision of the com- 
missioners was confirmed. The counsel for the 
squatters' interest then appealed both cases to the 
Supreme Court of the United States, at Washing- 
ton. This court, in 1864, confirmed the eleven 
league grant, and decided the twenty-two league 
grant in favor of the squatters. 

Whether this decision harmonizes with the 
maxims of eternal justice is debatable ground. If 
the instrument executed by Governor Michelto- 
rena, established in Sutter an ownership of twenty- 



128 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 

two leagues of land beyond the reach of revoca- 
tion under the laws of Mexico, for the United 
States to destroy that right, or rather disregard 
it, for only the decree of God could destroy it, 
would be a violation of her treaty, a violation of 
the law of nations, and a violation of natural 
law. 

The Supreme Court, in its decision, claims that 
the difficulties in which the Sutter cases were in- 
volved were increased by the presence of settlers 
on his grants. There should have been no such 
findings in the case. The trial was brought, and 
proceedings had, to determine whether Sutter's 
claim was valid or not. The presence of setders, 
except such as acquired a right under Sutter to 
settle upon the land, should not and could not 
by any means have vitiated his vested rights. 

They were not parties to the negotiation that 
vested the title in Sutter, and were not known, 
and should not have been known to the proceed- 
ings. The land was Sutter's or it was not, and 
whether it was his or not could not have been a 
question growing out of any relation the squat- 
ters sustained to the premises. To define more 
clearly my position, I will say if the grant of 
twenty-two square leagues ol land by the Mexican 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I29 

government, through its provincial governor, 
Micheltorena, was an act performed in harmony 
with the laws of Mexico, and all the conditions 
and requirements set forth in the instrument con- 
veying said land, had been duly performed and 
complied with by the parties thereto, no squatter 
could have held a claim on the land under color 
of title not acquired froni Sutter or founded in 
easement. 

But the Supreme Court questioned Michel- 
torena' s authority to issue the twenty-two league 
grant. There appears to have been an insurrec- 
tion in California, in which the insurgents suc- 
ceeded in driving the governor from the capital. 
It was while he was thus away from the capital 
that the grant in question was issued, and he 
never resumed his function as governor of Cali- 
fornia thereafter. 

This was the strongest point scored by the 
United States as against Sutter. This finding, 
however, was technical and at war with the princi- 
ples of justice and equity. If Mexico accepted 
the transactions of Micheltorena as valid up to 
and including the date of the grant, and it appears 
that she did, I fail to discover where, under the 



130 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 

treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, the United States 
derived authority to set the transaction aside. 

At the trial the fact was put in evidence that 
when Sutter asked for the grant of twenty-two 
leagues Governor Micheltorena sent his request 
on to Mexico, and that government, in reply, 
instructed him to issue the grant as solicited. 

For want of space I shall pursue this topic no 
further. Besides, any treatise that savors of writ- 
ten law is poor literary fodder for the average 
reader. 

The Sutter land case, as before stated, was 
presented to the board of commissioners for 
adjudication in 1852 and the final decision was 
rendered in 1864, thus running through a term 
of twelve years, at an expense, including witness 
fees, mileage and fees for eminent counsel, of one 
hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. 

The printed evidence in this case alone will fill 
a thousand 16- mo. pages. 

Sutter had conveyed away more land than he 
owned, according to the land decision, and it 
cost him more than one hundred thousand dollars 
to make his covenants good. This completed 
his financial ruin. 



GEN. JOHN A. SU'TTKR. 13I 

He was still in the quiet and peaceful pos- 
sesion of the large and desirable Hock estate on 
the Rio de los Plumas (Feather river), which he 
had selected and set apart for a home in his old 
age; especially designing to appropriate it to the 
use of his family, who had joined him after 
an absence of eighteen years. 

This house and his most valuable records of 
travels, adventures and pioneer life, were de- 
stroyed by fire. 

Being despoiled of his estates once so princely, 
and his flocks once so extensive, and becoming 
financially involved in his land suits, his credit 
became impaired and his trouble and embarass- 
ment increased until he finally, as the sad act of 
his life, mortgaged away his Hock farm. 

The reader's attention is directed to the fact 
that Roger B. Taney, of Dred Scott fame, was 
on the bench when the Sutter land case came 
before the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and that any decision would not have been 
a surprise. 

The bold explorer, the brave and humane gen- 
eral and the generous pioneer was stripped of 
his possessions in his old age with nowhere to 
lay his head. 



132 THE I.IFH AND TIMES OE 

He was very popular with the pioneers, some 
of whom praised him but to decoy — dealt with 
him but to plunder. 

This sad event in a useful, noble and grand 
life, will awaken emotions of regret and sorrow 
till kind and generous sentiments are lost to the 
hearts of the fair and the brave. 

He died at Litiz, Lancaster county, Pennsyl- 
vania, on the 17th day of June, in the year 1880. 
In stature General Sutter was about five feet and 
nine inches, and well proportioned. 

He was a man of noble bearing, a large heart 
and singleness of purpose. 

PRIVATE APARTMENTS. 

Sutter was very sociable with those about him, 
and yet the dignity of his bearing commanded 
their respect. He had a private kitchen to which 
none had access except himself and his private 
cook. This kitchen was ever found tidy, and 
such dishes as found their way to his table were 
seasonably prepared and always consonant to 
his wishes. Delmonico's table in New York city 
undoubtedly surpassed his in the glitter of table- 
ware and in the diversity of dishes. 



G^N. JOHN A. SU'TTER. 13^ 

Trout from mountain brooks, grouse, moun- 
tain and valley quail, tenderloin of the antelope 
and haunches of venison were among the com- 
forts of his table. He usually ate alone, except 
when extending his hospitality to distinguished 
visitors. This was natural enough. His 
employes did not resemble a French coterie at 
the salon of Madam de Stael. Some of his 
trappers, who rarely performed ablution, and 
never collided with a new shirt except to remain 
telescoped till the garment lost its identity, were 
not always as sweet as the rose of Allendale. We 
can scarcely wonder that Sutter barred them 
from the sanctity of his table although many of 
them actually out "ranked" him. 

He had, likewise, a private bed-room which 
was comfortably furnished and well upholstered. 
Although for a while in New Helvetia, he lived 
in a state of social isolation, he did not take on the 
conditions of a squalid recluse, but lived like 
the gentleman he was. 

He had a private room, also, for his body 
guard. This guard at first was composed of the 
Kanakas presented him by the king of the 
Sandwich Islands; but subsequently, of stalwart 



134 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 

Indians who had learned to speak Spanish and 
dip their finger tips in holy water at the mission 
in San Jos6. These men were duly instructed 
in the duties of a body guard and that such 
duties must be performed without failure or 
delay. 

The language of the California Indians was 
sterile and suited to the discussion of but few 
subjects. In his primitive condition, that is, 
before he associated with christianized races, he 
had to forego even the luxury of profanity. 

SUTTER RELIEF FUND. 

At the convening of the California legislature 
in 1864 Hon. J. P. Buckley introduced a bill in 
the senate providing for the relief of General 
John A. Sutter. The bill became a law, having 
immediate effect, and provided for the appropria- 
tion of $15,000 out of any money in the treasury 
of the State not otherwise appropriated, and to 
be drawn in monthly installments of $250 each 
for five years, for the benefit of Sutter and his 
heirs; and in the event of his death, his heirs 
were to receive the same monthly installment 
until such appropriation be exhausted. 



GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I35 

In the winter of 1869-70 Hon. W. E. Eichel- 
roth introduced a bill in the assembly providing 
urther relief for Sutter. This bill, providing an 
appropriation of $250 per month for two years, 
also passed and became a law. 

In the winter of 1872 a similar bill was intro- 
duced in the senate by Hon. J. A. Duffy; and 
another in the assembly by Hon. B. C. Northup, 
in 1874, both of which were passed and approved 
and went into immediate effect. 

It is with peculiar pleasure that the names ot 
the honorable gentlemen who distinguished them- 
selves by coming to the relief of this kind and 
good man are recorded here. 

He had been despoiled of possessions that 
would have classed him at that time with Astor 
and Vanderbilt. He had founded on the Pacific 
shore an extensive settlement of brave, good and 
useful men, and had aided materially in bringing 
California under American rule. He had extended 
to American immigrants the protection of a sov- 
ereign, the blessings of his wealth, and the treas- 
ure of his fidelity. 

Forever honored be the legislatures that so far 
reciprocated his princely benefactions. Nor 



136 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 

should the great State of Cahfornia cease her 
demonstrations of gratitude till the statue of him 
whose name will be associated long with her his- 
tory adorns the rotunda of her capitol and his 
ashes are laid to rest in the shade of the New Hel- 
vetia he loved, where the unmeasured strains of 
the beautiful river, as it flows on, may mingle with 
his benedictions forever. 




